


Tastes Lost & Acquired

by Skullflower



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 1992 script, Abusive Relationships, Alternate Universe, Angst, Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Dark Crowley (Good Omens), Darkish anyway, Denial of Feelings, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Eventual Happy Ending, Goes from sandpaper to soft, Good Omens Movie Script (1992), I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Idiocy that transcends time and space, Insecure Crowley (Good Omens), It's gonna hurt before we get there, Kinda? I don't know what tags I need to add tbh, Letters, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mystery, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Possessive Behavior, Post-Almost Apocalypse (Good Omens), Rating May Change, Script!Aziraphale, Script!Crowley, Scriptverse, Slow Burn, Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), Violence, repentant crowley
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-03-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:02:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 31,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22278328
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Skullflower/pseuds/Skullflower
Summary: The facts were spread out in front of Crowley like a fortune teller's deck.Aziraphale was missing. Not a soul remembered or knew who the angel was and, for the first time in six thousand years, Crowley was well and truly alone.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 277
Kudos: 495





	1. Missing Pieces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> My response to the script.
> 
> You know the one.

It was a nice day. The air was cool and crisp with clouds like brush strokes painting the blue April sky. A desire for picnics caught on as quickly and thoroughly as the flu and the park was filled with people. So too was the museum, much to the annoyance of one elegantly dressed man in black attempting to cut his way through a particularly thick crowd. He had made it a point to relieve some of them of a precious token or two to counter the overall positive charge of the atmosphere and as a means of petty revenge. They had inconvenienced him, after all, by standing in his way. 

The man was none other than Antony J. Crowley, nightclub owner, rumored crime lord and demon. 

He had not come to the museum for his own pleasure the way the humans had and he certainly was not looking to enjoy a 'bright and shining day' in this glorified tomb filled with dusty old relics. He was here for one specific 'relic' that happened to be dusty if only due to the fact that the angel forgot to move when he was reading for too long in one spot or restoring a priceless artifact. 

The door to Aziraphale's office was shoved open without a single knock. The angel contained within the cluttered room started with a gasp and dropped the box of folders he was moving from his desk to a stack forming against the west-facing wall. 

"Oh! Crowley!" Aziraphale scrambled to gather the folders that spilled out of the box while Crowley stood over him, watching with hooded eyes. 

"Don't tell me you _forgot_?" he questioned in an unamused drawl. A hand planted to his hip leaving the other to settle on the top of Aziraphale's crowded desk. 

"No, no, certainly not. Time got away from me is all. Erm. One. One moment and I will have-" He huffed and puffed with the effort of rearranging the folders into the box then placing it on its intended stack. Crowley's patience was dwindling away by the second, marked by the severity of the curl to his lips. "There." Aziraphale breathed as he examined his work. "Much better. Did you receive my letter?"

"Is it?" Crowley questioned only to receive a stare for his tone. "What letter?"

Aziraphale cleared a space on his desk for the ancient board. Stacks of paper were tilted at perilous angles and pens fought for dominance among the rubble of paper weights and forgotten coffee mugs. Crowley eyed the paper stacks, daring a single sheaf to slip down onto the game board. He pulled up a chair and settled in. 

"I sent a letter to you with news about my excursion," the angel finally explained as he delicately lifted a cool chip of white marble between his fingertips. Crowley watched him examine the board. His lips were pursed in thought, pale eyes narrowing at the available squares. Eventually, he settled on a choice and lowered his piece. "Days ago. You did not receive it?"

Crowley grabbed his black chip and rolled the coin-like shape between his fingers. He was quicker to choose than Aziraphale. "I receive lots of mail, angel. Most of it on the computer which I know you have access to or, I don't know. Phone me?" 

Human invention was accumulating unprecedented speed the last few years. Even Crowley, who complained about everything, was unable to resist the joys of computers and mobiles. They opened new opportunities to mess with the humans, sure, but they were so convenient. He happened to have fun with these new toys and took to them like ducks to water. He was not surprised to find that Aziraphale did the exact opposite. 

"Letter writing is a dying art," was Aziraphale's response. Crowley's eyes rolled hard behind his dark lenses.

"It's dying for a reason. Who has the time to waste on writing a long letter?"

Their game proceeded in the same way it always did, with Aziraphale taking a lead and Crowley plotting the opportune time to change the pieces. Many things had changed the years after the apocalypse was averted. The world was quickly changing. Some things, in spite of one momentous occasion, resumed a familiar shape. Aziraphale did not stoop to Crowley's level and the demon did not rise to the angel's. 

And neither said a word about it.

Instead, they discussed the recent development of humans worrying about the world's end. There was a lot of buzz in the air about 'Y2K' and the way technology was going to fall apart or some other nonsense the humans were worried over. Others insisted that the true _biblical_ apocalypse was upon them. Not a single one knew that the real thing almost happened seven years ago - not with a boiling sea and war but with a parade and delirious laughter. Only the angel and demon remembered, a boy, and a witch. 

Crowley scoffed as he always did. He was good at that, scoffing. He had made it into an art form, if he said so himself, and he had a different scoff for different occasions and varying degrees of derision. His scoffing for the Y2K panic was light, condescending and just a little hollow.

Satan had shoved off a little too easily back then and Crowley was not one to trust anything or anyone but himself. If something seemed too good to be true, then it most likely was .

"Wonder what the boy is getting up to," Crowley mused, trying for cool and casual. 

"Ah. Anathema tells me he had done quite well in his schooling. He is a bright young man and he gets on well with his peers. Not a sign of...well..." His gaze lifted from the board. "You know."

Crowley opened his mouth, fully intent on making a comment when a light knocking at the door interrupted him. He was the absolute last person to use the phrase 'speak of the devil' but it was apt in the present case. 

Anathema Device had changed little in the seven years that passed. She wore the same clothes despite her occupation as Aziraphale's assistant, and Time had yet to lay an old and gnarled finger on her youthful features. She was the same pretty girl in Tadfield only now she regarded Crowley with open disdain. 

He rather liked the girl. 

"Oh. It's you," she greeted. Crowley flashed is most charming, oily smile that he knew she despised most. The anticipated glower was delivered, leaving Aziraphale to flutter between them nervously.

"My dear girl, I was not expecting you so soon I- Ah, I see now. The time went by me again." He examined the board and discovered the changed pieces. As usual, he did not call Crowley out on his cheating. Instead, he smiled with all of his absent-minded serenity. "Anyway, it seems I have lost again so I am all yours. Until next time, then, Crowley?"

The demon rose from the chair and responded with a careless wave. Their conversation faded the farther away he went. 

"Crowley?" 

Aziraphale's voice calling to him stopped Crowley from leaving the building entirely. He turned just enough to look back properly.

"Do read my letter so we may plan to meet again accordingly."

"Whatever, angel," Crowley replied.

~*~

Having no checker matches in Aziraphale's office did throw Crowley off at first, but this was not the first pause in their interactions with one another. There had been times when he did not lay eyes on his so-called adversary for years - decades even. He had glanced over the first ridiculous letter Aziraphale insisted on sending. It was a couple of pages on thick paper, a long and tiresome account that did not reach a significant point until midway. The daft thing had even sealed it with wax!

Crowley had rolled his eyes tossed the letter aside and watched it flutter off of the edge of the desk. So the angel ran off to chase some other dusty artifact that stuffy, self-important humans would cluck about and then seek to steal or replicate into convincing fakes for the highest bidder? His tongue clicked against the back of his teeth and he pondered for only a second what he would do with his time while Aziraphale was away and decided that he would do everything the same except for the routine drag of defeating the angel at a checkers game he refused to cheat at any more.

Weeks became months and more letters arrived, all of them wax-sealed and written in Aziraphale's perfect script. Crowley searched for dates or any set time that the angel was due to return and, finding none, he dropped them onto a pile that was growing. Crowley often thought of binning them and, for one reason or another, never got around to it no matter how they cluttered his otherwise immaculate office. There they languished, as silent and forlorn as mundane (and actually rather expensive) paper could be. The unbroken seals menaced him with an uncomfortable wriggling sensation that started somewhere in the chest and flowed outward to attack the extremities. If he was not an occult being that could _sense_ curses, he might have accused Aziraphale of sending them to him in letter form. 

November arrived without Aziraphale and enough was enough. There had not been a letter since July and Crowley would tolerate the absence no longer. 

He carried his discontent with him (wore it fashionably, even) on the way to the closed museum late one evening midway through November. That would have been the usual day for their meetings and he was taking personal offense to its neglect, no matter his complaints about the time those games wasted. Perhaps the letters were not reaching him now, or Aziraphale posted the address to the museum out of the spite Crowley knew he was capable of deep down inside. If there were hairline fractures forming on the surface of the space labeled 'Aziraphale' in his head, he was far from acknowledging them.

Then he shoved open the door to Aziraphale's office. 

For decades, the office had belonged to Aziraphale. Clever, tiny miracles were employed to keep humans from noticing anything was off about Aziraphale's lack of aging and his constant presence in the museum. (He was not unlike a light fixture - always there and necessary and useful but easy to overlook and forget.) He had countless curios and books - _shelves upon shelves of books_ \- scrolls and cups, very nice and expensive pens and small notes to remind him of anything he thought important at the time. Crowley normally could trace Aziraphale's scent in this area from several halls away but there was none of that here.

The office was as tidy as his own. The chair that had Aziraphale's impression within it was gone and the chair that bore Crowley's was nowhere to be found as well. 

Something was wr-

 _But no._

Crowley reminded himself of the way Aziraphale was stacking boxes filled with folders. _Maybe_ , he reasoned, _he moved to another office._ This line of sound reasoning did not prevent the demon from tearing the nice, clean office apart. He was unsatisfied until he, on hands and knees beneath the desk, felt the smooth surface of a familiar white game piece. In a future time, so very long after this moment, he would have marked this as the turning point that changed everything. 

He sat back on his heels to examine the piece in the moonlight shining through a window that Aziraphale constantly covered with thick drapes. Because he and Aziraphale had played their checker game for so long, the pieces were rubbed thin of their star and moon engravings. Only this one he held still had a sliver of the sun. The fractures spiderwebbed. He pocketed the marble piece and stormed into the hall.

The first person he seized was a tall, skinny janitor with 'Pulsifer' sewn into the cloth patch of his uniform shirt. Crowley knew this one, knew that Aziraphale knew this one because he had seen the angel talking to the young man on several occasions.

"Where _is_ he," Crowley snarled.

Pulsifer dropped his broom and held his hands up and his eyes wide. The sharp clatter echoed. "W-who?" 

"Aziraphale! Professor Aziraphale? You know, stodgy white-haired bloke? Soft as anything? Clothes that have never met an iron? That Aziraphale?" he said through his teeth. He was attempting to be calm, cool. He was doing a poor job of it. 

"I'm...I'm sorry, I don't know who-"

Crowley never let him finish. He twisted on his heels, leaving black scuff marks on the recently polished floor. 

In the week that followed, the results were more of the same. None of Aziraphale's museum humans seemed to know who he was. No one remembered. Crowley, as a demon, could smell deceit when it was happening. Sins had a way of lingering in the air. No one was lying and not a single part of that made sense. The only person he had not found to ask was Anathema Device and he put off calling her until he had exhausted all other options.

So, as he sat behind his own desk within the comfort of his personal office, he conjured her number onto his mobile. He stared at the game piece in his hand then grabbed the letters he failed to read while he waited for her to answer. They were evidence that Aziraphale did, in fact, exist. Whatever madness was going on had to be a local problem. That had to be it. 

"Hello?" answered a familiar albeit sleepy voice. Anathema. Crowley was baring his teeth in a grin. At last, she answered after his fifteenth try at her number.

"Where's Aziraphale?" he demanded.

There was a pause, another female voice whispered in the background. Anathema's response to the woman was muffled and then she was speaking to Crowley again. "Sorry, I think you have the wrong number."

"What are you playing at?" Crowley hissed. "Of _course_ I have the right number. You're Anathema Device. Worked as Aziraphale's assistant. Helped with the whole- The world. The _thing_. It was you. You were there and you _know_ him."

Maybe it was all an elaborate prank. Soon, someone was going to jump out and shout 'surprise' and tell Crowley that they had him fooled and would produce Aziraphale from a box because he doubted the angel had it in him to do anything like this. 

"You have. The wrong. Number. I don't know any Aziraphales." The line cut and Crowley was left with silence.

He did not know how long he cradled the phone to his ear before he placed it on the desk beside the letters. 

Aziraphale was missing. Not a single soul aside from Crowley had an inkling as to who Aziraphale was.

For the first time in six thousand years, Crowley was well and _truly_ alone.


	2. How Bizarre

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Denial crumbles bit by bit and a little history seeps through the cracks.

_My Dear Crowley,_

_As I write this letter to you, the hour is late and the day is Wednesday. My location is Rajasthan. Do you recall the Holi festival we attended there? It had to have been in the late sixteenth century if memory serves! You wore the most lovely saree and were quite put out by all of the..._

Crowley dropped the thick paper onto his desk and continued to pinch the tiny packet of fine carnelian powder. The hue bled rich and vibrant through the wax paper and minuscule grains trickled from the folded top. The powder would stain, Crowley knew. He did not prevent the stuff from sprinkling onto the unfolded letter nor avoid getting it on his skin. He was lost in thought, anyway. There was no need to read further to remember what Aziraphale was going on about. This same powder had stained _not only_ his saree, but his skin and hair as well. This _exact_ shade of dark red-orange. 

_'The colour suits you, Crowley! No, really, it does.'_ Aziraphale had said over Crowley's ranting and complaining. The white-clad, pale angel had been stained blue and purple, pink and gold...

...That was just like Aziraphale to live in the past, to collect a piece of it and hold on tight while expecting Crowley to do the same. The demon was not one to keep silly things like mementos or chase after the past and he was not about to start now, no matter how often the angel insisted.

 _'Sentimental fool,'_ he thought.

The packet was dropped onto the letter and his fingers rubbed clean with a handkerchief he pulled from the breast pocket of his nice jacket. All he managed to do was stain the handkerchief leading him to wonder what he expected would happen in the first place.

With an irritated 'tch', he grabbed the letter with the packet and dropped both into the bin beside his desk. 

"Come in," Crowley called after a knock to the door forced his attention away from the next letter in the stack that continued to exude (in his mind only) a malevolent aura - that is to say, an angelic aura. Aziraphale's. 

Tina opened the door wide enough to accommodate his bulk as he leaned in. He gave the impression that he was not there to stay for long but to get to a single point and return to his work which was something Crowley appreciated about the barman. "'S about time to put in orders for New Years, Mister C. I've got the imps asking after the party and the theme. The punters are going to want to know what's coming soon."

That was right. November was creeping towards its end and the dawn of a new year - a new century and millennium - was approaching. The New Years parties that The Hellfire Club hosted were some of the few occasions on this dull rock that Crowley actually look forward to and took personal pleasure in. This year should have been especially exciting and he could not find that spark in him now. 

"Mister Crowley?" Tina prompted after the silence lasted too long on Crowley's part.

"Hm? Right...yeah. New Years. Still thinking about that. I'll get back to you," he answered. Then, just as Tina was sliding back to leave, Crowley stopped him. "Tina, wait."

The barman arched a thick brow in question. 

"Do you happen to recall anyone named Aziraphale?" he asked. When he was met with a blank stare, he pursed his lips but continued anyway. "White hair. White clothes. A lot of white. He comes in from time to time?"

For a moment, he held his breath as he pinned Tina with an unblinking gaze. The man was looking up at the ceiling, then at the floor, and clearly searched his memory. Crowley leaned forward, his nails digging into the arms of his chair.

"No, can't say I have. You got a picture or something?"

The question had the unexpected effect of locking Crowley up. He couldn't recall whether or not he possessed anything like a photograph of Aziraphale but surely he must, long as they had known each other. "Hang on," he said. Drawers to his desk were yanked open and rummaged through and then files on his computer searched. In his sudden frenzy, he did not see the concerned stare Tina focused on him. 

"This person a friend of yours or...?"

Crowley scowled at his computer then waved impatiently. "Nevermind. That will be all."

With Tina gone, Crowley attempted to conjure a photograph. If he did not have one on hand, he assumed could create one but he found himself incapable. 

That was fine. Just fine. 

He had other sources where Aziraphale's likeness was recorded and had ever intention of going there _right now_.

His seat rolled back and bounced into the wall from how quickly he stood up. He grabbed his keys to leave then stopped at the door with his fingers curled around the handle. Crowley looked over his shoulder at the bin beside his desk, cursed under his breath, and hurried to dig the letter and the packet of powder out. Once it joined the rest of the letters, he was able to leave.

~*~

The museum was busy by the time Crowley arrived. Crowds of people followed guides so they could gape at works of art, security kept a close eye out for troublemakers, and bored children aimed to stir up trouble by getting their sticky fingers on any and every unattended surface. Each soul was begging to be exploited and the demon would have indulged on any ordinary day. Today was not ordinary. The last months had been far from ordinary, in fact.

He ignored the humans and came close to running several of them over in his rapid prowl towards specific works of art. Shouts of distress or anger fell on deaf ears - not that he would have bothered anyway. 

There were several paintings that existed where he and Aziraphale made appearances. The two of them had always found a way to be where the more exciting and interesting moments of the world's history took place and, because of that, artists captured them. They could be found in the corners of a scene like footnotes or doodles in the margins. There was the painting of Queen Victoria, and even one done of Eden. He skipped over those in favor of Julius Ceasar's death because he had a few fond memories involving that incident.

Sure enough, there he stood in his black toga but his angelic opposite was not present. 

Crowley stared at the painting for a half hour while he searched for an explanation. The paintings could have been switched, he imagined. This was a fake and thieves made a mistake with the replica. That was all. 

He left Cesar and found Victoria. The results were the same. 

Painting after painting, Aziraphale was missing. He was absent from the pottery and from tapestries. Where there was a black-clad figure, there was no white. It was as if someone had _erased_ the angel, as if he had never existed at all. 

The newest discovery provided additional, unwelcome weight to Crowley's thoughts as he returned to his car. He now had to entertain certain possibilities that he avoided until this moment and he did not like it. 

_'How bizarre, How bizarre,'_ sang the radio. Crowley did not notice, not at first, that the Bentley was not screaming Queen at him. 

_'Ooh baby, ooh, baby, it's making me crazy'_

Was it Satan? Crowley would not be surprised if the Devil had destroyed Aziraphale. Was he capable of erasing the angel, though? Could he erase Crowley?

_'Every time I look around, look around'_

Or did Heaven do this? And if so, why? 

_'Every time I look around, it's in my face'_

"Oh, sod off with that!" Crowley shouted at his car. The radio dial was turned to cut the music off. The silence that roared in his ears was no more of a comfort. Silence only served to pronounce the emptiness, accentuate a void that had opened up, yawning and unrelenting. Aziraphale was not just missing. He was _gone_. 

Wasn't he?

The angel existed still in Crowley's memory. All he had to do was shut his eyes and he saw Aziraphale as clear as day behind his lids. After so long, he knew the angel from every angle. He could-

"That's it!" he hissed to the air. The void shrank by a fraction.

Back in his office where there remained a stack of letters and a marble game piece, Crowley waved a sketchbook into existence and a stick of charcoal. He did not think about the black dust staining his fingers or making a mess on the surface of his desk when he blew residue away. He only had thoughts of applying Aziraphale's likeness to paper. 

A little known fact about the demon Crowley was that he was quite the artist. For as vain a creature as he presented himself to be, he never revealed this trait. Disdained it, even. But, it was there all the same. He was capable of rendering the heavens upon canvas in such a way that other artists wept and despaired of ever achieving such skill. His sketches alone were breath taking. Aziraphale knew. The angel had always praised the few scattered works of art Crowley was compelled to create. He was like a demon possessed in those times, frenzied. His corporations itched and burned with the need. Fire roared in the twisted, cracked thing that was his essence.

Aziraphale's eyes, as they formed upon the page, were kind and just as saddened as they were when he witnessed Crowley destroy those rare pieces every time.


	3. Blackhole

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes we backslide before we move forward.

Heavy pounding at the door stirred Crowley from what had been a dream, or at least what he thought to be a dream. Aziraphale was in it, he knew. The angel was telling something to him, something important. 

They were in Rome, maybe...or was it Babylon? Liye? Burtscheid? Thousands of years worth of existing combined with the chaotic force of dreams had a way of blending all recalled details together. Perhaps they were within an amalgamation of all the places they had ever gone to and experienced together. At the center of it all was the angel, a glowing and resplendent beacon, and the details were shattering with each dull thud.

"..ss....Boss! Mister Crowley?" came the alarmed baritone notes of Tina's voice. 

Crowley scrunched his entire face up in his struggle to fight against waking. The dream slipped further through his fingers and then was gone when a different pounding joined the noise at the door. He was in _pain_. 

"Alright," he grumbled, then knowing his voice had not carried, sat up and shouted. "Al _right_! You've gotten my attention. Stop beating the bloody door!" 

The office was a wreck, he noted once he opened his eyes. The walls were covered in pages torn from his sketch book, each one covered in drawings that he couldn't make out from where he sat. Bottles of every known brand of liquor covered the floor and his desk and there was a tie hanging from the ceiling light. He had no idea how that got up there or whose tie it was because he did not wear anything other than black. It was purple.

He didn't bother with cleaning the place up as he stumbled over bottles to get to the door. It was opened far enough that his face could be seen by Tina in all of its sour, scowling glory and nothing else. His shades were askew but not enough to give a real glimpse of his eyes, fortunately. 

Tina's nose wrinkled. The office smelled like a distillery and despair. 

"Uh..." Tina began. Crowley gave him a minute longer to adjust to the sight of his employer in the kind of disheveled state that he _never_ allowed in the last several hundreds of years. At the moment, the demon could not be arsed to care. 

"Yes?" he asked. The single word ended in a hiss. He also could not bring himself to bother correcting that, either. To his disappointment, Tina did not fear the noise.

"You...You're back, then? Note on your door said you were on holiday." 

He tapped a paper taped on the door that read: _On holiday. Gone for ~~a week~~ ~~seven days~~ ten days. Tina is in charge. Do not bother me under any circumstances._

The hastily scrawled letters were swimming in Crowley's hungover vision. He tilted his head forward to stare over the tops of his lenses then looked at Tina. "Ermehh...Yeah...Last night. Got in when no one was looking." Even to his own ears this sounded like a lie. Tina's gaze told him that he knew this was a lie. The beauty of their dynamic was that neither was going to address the bold, glaring lie. Crowley might give him a raise for it.

"Y'have time to work out the plans for New Year?" Tina asked, skipping over the whole Thing that would not be discussed. "We're a week in and running out of time."

A _week_ in?

Crowley's throat tightened. His nails dragged paint from the door frame as they dug in. How long had he been 'on holiday'? The question was on the tip of his tongue and he didn't dare ask for fear of revealing just how out of touch he was becoming with...with _everything_. He took great pride in his ability to exact his control anywhere he saw fit. The club, especially, was his domain and everything that happened in it happened because he allowed it and anything that went against his wishes was made to leave or disappear. His appearance was controlled, his environment, his humans, his angel.

_His angel._

"Boss?"

He was adrift again, he realized. Tina's question prompted him to snap out of it and he adjusted his shades. "Right. Give me a mo'. I will be out in...In a moment." He shut the door before Tina could respond then twisted around to reexamine his office and what he had done to it. 

Like a ghost, he drifted along the walls where his elaborate sketches were pinned by demonic miracle. All but a handful were depictions of Aziraphale that he could not remember working on. The angel's expressive face was captured in all of his many moods, his hair always the same except for the one time he wore it long in Eden. Crowley was familiar with dread and he knew that each new (new to his sober self, at least) drawing was the source. 

"That's enough of that," Crowley growled. With a wave of the hand, the drawings sprang from the wall. Their fluttering sounded too much like rustling feathers for comfort on their way to stacking up on the desk. The bottles vanished and the stench of stale booze left with them. 

He corrected his clothing next, exchanging his filthy suit for a crisp new one and willed himself to be immaculate and clean. His hair arranged itself to the way he preferred, combed back and styled, and the residue of charcoal faded from his skin. 

Last, he ripped the purple tie from the light and caught it on fire.

"Whatever game you are playing, Aziraphale, I will have no part in it," Crowley spat at the pile of letters and the stack of sketches. He held his hand over the papers. Burning them would serve the angel right. 

He stuffed them into the bottom drawer of his desk, instead. He told himself that he would use them against Aziraphale somehow. Later, when the time was right. It did not have to make sense _now_ , but he was certain this was the correct move. If all of this had not inconvenienced him so terribly, he could have even admitted that he was impressed by what the angel had accomplished. _There_ was that sliver of a bastard he enjoyed.

"Your move now, angel," he said to the open air.

Satisfied with himself - the kind of satisfaction that comes of perfected and artful denial - Crowley left his office to speak with Tina about the plans for the New Year.

~*~

In the end, Crowley had very little to do with the celebration plans. He went through all of the motions that were expected of him so well that no one questioned his month long crisis. He was of an age (as far as they could tell by looking at him) where men did do that. There were not many people that knew Crowley well. Even fewer liked him enough to be concerned.

"I'm too busy, Tina," Crowley had said. He looked like himself and sounded like himself. In his mind, he was sure that he felt normal too but he was distracted. His eyes often wandered, searching. "Come up with an idea and make whatever arrangements you need. Leave the invoice in the usual place."

"You mean the email?" Tina supplied. They were standing at the top level of the club where they were able to overlook the dance floor and stage.

Crowley blinked at him. The man was out of focus and his words meaningless for a moment, but only just. A few seconds were all that the demon needed to catch on and recall what an email was. "Right, yes. Of course."

The days that followed dragged by with excruciating tedium, each as empty as the last. No signs had come from Aziraphale and Crowley did search. He waited for another clue to appear, or for the angel to give up and admit defeat and be done with this foolishness. To stop wasting both of their time. Crowley avoided his desk and only made the occasional call to Anathema. (She was neither amused by his calls nor the emails of his drawings that he sent during his bender. He still couldn't remember what happened in those blackout days and would be horrified to know that his art was floating around on the internet now.)

Then, all of a sudden, the big night had arrived and Crowley could not have said what he had done with his precious time without admitting all that he would much rather pretend did not exist. 

The club was full beyond capacity with a line wrapping around the building of people desperate to get in. Crowley had never seen so many and did not question why when he was faced with the astonishing results of Tina's labor. 

The barman had chosen a cosmic theme rather than the hellish. Lights were arranged to resemble the stars while projectors hidden within rockets or shimmering planets displayed nebulas and other celestial bodies against the black walls. Admittance required all people dress in metallic clothing, or black and white with the proper accessories. The imps were all in silver with stars in their hair as they served specialty drinks prepared to accent the theme - some fluids even glowed. 

He did not last to the count down. Crowley slipped away, unnoticed, at the height of the party to his office. There, he removed the stack of letters he pointedly ignored and unfolded them until they were arranged in a circle around him on the floor. 

"You were supposed to be here," he whispered. Just like they had their games every week, they had greeted the new year together every year not long after the beginning. No matter what was happening between them or in the world, somehow they managed. Aziraphale was reliable in that way and this was the kind of party he would have enjoyed. Crowley could imagine the annoying platitudes he would spout about the creativity of humanity. He would fawn over the arrangement of lights to resemble the stars.

Crowley wrapped his arms around his knees after pulling them to his chest. While thematic music distantly hummed, he read every line of the letters. All of them contained a fragment of a treasure. There was an oyster shell with a Roman coin to accompany an account of where Aziraphale was at the time in one. In another, a jade ornament that had belonged to Wu Zetian that Aziraphale recovered and did Crowley remember her? (Of course he did. How could he ever forget that woman?) Swatches of ancient silk lovingly preserved were folded around a priceless fragment of The Tale of Genji. (Aziraphale was impossible to remove from Japan at that time.)

Written between the lines of a candid report on his excursion across the world to track down priceless artifacts, emblems of history, was a question Crowley had been deaf to for so, so long. Or, better yet, sneered at.

_Do you remember the time when...?_

_Do you recall...?_

_Remember when we were here? And what we did there?_

Crowley sank deeper into himself. His aching, burning eyes were wide and fixed upon the question Aziraphale was gently asking him in his own obtuse way. Clever angel, sending all of the pieces to a grand puzzle and neglecting to send the most important one.

He clenched his fingers around his elbows so they did not tremble. There was nothing he could do for the knot in his gut. Even without a body, Crowley suspected it would be there deep in the core of him.

_**Do you remember, Crowley, when you still loved the world?** _

He shuddered and spoke into the air the words that Aziraphale was too kind to ask, if he did not think them already.

"Remember, Crowley, when you weren't a miserable cunt?"

His voice sounded as small as he felt.


	4. Appleseed Dreams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How did you become what you are now? 
> 
> Were you ever anything else?

The first day of January in the year 2000 dawned and the world had not ended. Planes did not fall from the sky, computers did not fail, Jesus Christ did not make a grand comeback tour, and Crowley had not unfurled from his huddle amidst the ruins of his shared history with Aziraphale.

In the cold quiet hours of that brand new morning, Crowley considered the tales he once listened to in idle moments beside Aziraphale back when all stories were spoken and not read. There often was a point in the story where the protagonist came to a shocking realization that allowed them to overcome their obstacles and win the day, the world, _love_. Lessons were learned and joy was had by all while the villain despaired or died. He never had illusions about what his designation was and, when discussing the stories afterward with Aziraphale, complained about the inaccuracy. The villains were usually the winners in reality. They had the cunning and ambition on top of greed that drove them to the top. More than all of that, they did not care about stacking up bodies to climb there and maintain their position which they then taught to the next generation to do the same. Aziraphale would sigh and argue against Crowley's cherry-picked examples to no avail. Only in fabrications did good triumph, Crowley insisted. 

And yet...

And yet here he sat in despair.

Objectively, he was not suffering, not on the surface, not on 'paper'. He owned a successful business, was respected (feared, disliked, avoided), generally viewed as physically attractive and he had credit for his part in saving the world. Most of all, he was free from Hell so far as he could tell. All of these were ideal points to factor in and not a single one of them, save for his freedom, meant anything. Break any of his boons down and one would find that they were hollow boxes wrapped in flashy, pretty wrapping paper meant to distract.

Again, he had no illusions about his part on the grand stage that was the world. He knew so well, in fact, that he lived and breathed the part for so long that he forgot he was ever anything else. This freezing day absent of his only constant for millennia was the appropriate conclusion. The villain lost and the world moved on. End Scene. 

Aziraphale had not forgotten, however, and seemed hellbent on making sure Crowley did not either.

Crowley reached out for the last letter the angel sent to him, if one could call it that. There was the one paper folded several times into a small square that contained two apple seeds. Only Crowley's name was written in the angel's elegant script, right there in the center, plaintive as a sigh. He had seen Aziraphale's writing enough times over the many years to know what emotion was expressed depending upon the loops and lines. 

He pressed the paper to the tip of his nose and closed his eyes, breathing in the scent that was entirely Aziraphale laced with apple seeds and let the fragrance carry him back, far back. Before paper and ink, before stories and games, all the way to the beginning. The _Beginning_ beginning.

~*~

Crowley did not rise from Hell into Eden as a paper-thin caricature cut from wormwood. That is not to say that he was particularly kind and he was not at all good. He _was_ a demon, but he was also something else. Someone else.

He was a curious thing. Easily distracted.

The first taste of Eden's air was a revelation to the demon that, out of all the other demons, was chosen to go up and cause problems for God's new toys. Before the world was made and before Falling, he had known Heaven and had tasted the vacuum of space with the grit of stardust on his tongue. Here there were puzzling green things, splashes of color and the cool bite of water collecting on grass - dew, he later found out. What a fascinating sight dew was! He would never admit to how long he stared at the light reflecting off of the tiny droplets like diamonds on soft emeralds.

For the first many days, he explored instead of working with the vague excuse of 'research'. If that meant chasing animals to get a better look at how they operated or lingering near running water to experience the music of it, so be it. 

His 'research' was not without dangers because there were angels. He could smell them in the air and hear the occasional song or fluttering wings. Crowley could avoid all of them except for the guardian of the East who, rather than stand upon the wall, kept his feet on the ground where he was easily accessed by the humans. It was the act of Eve sweetly including the angel in her discovery of new foods, and the way Aziraphale took pleasure in accepting her offerings to taste the fruits himself, that gave Crowley the idea for his first and most significant temptation. 

Shaming an angel with such details would have been a perfectly demonic act to perform. He should have, after the deed was done, marched up to Aziraphale and whisper the horrible truth into his ears. Crowley never did. He never could.

His original intent was no better, however. 

Striking an angel down would have been the cherry on top of his deeds. Hell would reward him and he could gain status coveted by all demons, the sort that would save him from the worst torments the Fallen were subjected to. If he climbed high enough, only Satan himself could touch him. It would have been so easy, too. 

After the humans were cast out, he assumed his favored shape - tall and masculine, all sharp and sever elegance with black tresses to match his immaculate black wings. There was nothing he could do about the eyes or his feet, but it was almost perfect and that was just right for him. More importantly, this form was also more capable than that of a snake where combat was concerned. 

There Aziraphale stood facing the hole, his hands wringing and his shoulders tense. He had no sword and was distracted. His distress could have made him sloppy and he was ripe for the taking. 

Curiosity and his own mouth got in the way. "Why do you suppose we have been wearing robes but they were naked all this time?" Crowley asked from directly behind the angel. This resulted in a face full of snowy feathers after Aziraphale squawked and spun around. 

"What?!"

"I said, why do you suppose we wear robes but they have worn nothing up until now? Here you are, and the other angels, all covered in robes. Robes in Heaven. Robes in Hell. Did it never occur to them to do the same after watching your lot wandering around covered up? Why'd it take an apple to make them decide clothing was an option? Makes no sense, if you ask me."

"W-well...They- They have the knowledge now of...of good and evil," Aziraphale replied, though he did not sound as if he was certain of the answer. "And notice they are naked."

Crowley scowled. "What has clothes got to do with good and evil?"

He expected more of an argument. Aziraphale raised his eyes to the heavens, then leveled a frowning gaze upon Crowley. "I am not certain, actually, when you put it like that but I am sure there is a good reason."

The angel's response soothed him. He could not fathom why and did not try to. There was more appeal in chasing the satisfaction of talking, asking questions, and being answered even if he did not _like_ the answer. The angel did not try to attack him and before he knew what was happening, he was drawn in. By the time the subject reached Aziraphale's sword, the sun had set and they were cast in darkness.

"You will Fall for that, you know," Crowley spoke with an authority on the matter that he did not have. He wanted...

"Do you really think so?" Aziraphale whispered. The fear and hurt in his eyes called to Crowley. The visible distress gave him the excuse to reach out and feel the silky texture of the angel's neck beneath his fingers as he rubbed soothing circles beneath his jaw. Feeling the fluttering pulse beneath his palm spoke to an unnamable, primal aspect of his being.

He leaned in close. So close. Aziraphale did not shy away and he felt the same comfort of their earlier conversation by that discovery.

"Shh...No need to be afraid," Crowley promised with a softened tone. Unlike his pretty words to Eve, he meant what he said now. The longer he stood in Aziraphale's company, speaking to him, _looking at him_ , the more he wanted to _keep_ him. Whatever that meant. "When you do, I will be there to collect you. I will keep you safe."

His words did not have the soothing and reassuring effect that he hoped for. Aziraphale stammered and made pious noises between bids for reassurance. His eyes brightened and turned watery. Crowley was helpless against them, much to his deep concern.

"Oh, calm down. I didn't mean it," he lied.

~*~

Crowley opened his eyes to find himself lying on his side with the paper beneath his cheek and the apple seeds held in a fist against his chest. The memory did not slip away from him in the way of a normal dream, but lingered and took root - or rather, it regrew after a long and dormant winter.

An idea came to him and he was not entirely convinced that it was his own in light of the peculiar moment. He did not question it, all the same.

Letters were sent with the expectation that a response would be given in return. 

How could he return a letter to a person that had vanished without a trace, from historic portraits and memory?

He would figure that part out later but, for now, he could conjure the tools to write with and so he began a response to the last letter he received in regards to the very beginning of all things. And of them.

_Aziraphale,_

_These are not the same seeds, are they? They can't be, but do you ever wonder what could have happened if the seeds were taken from Eden? Anyway, that's besides the point. I was thinking just now about the way we left the garden. Why did you agree to follow me out of the wall? You never did say..._

He had a lot more to write and many more letters to follow. This was only the beginning - one that he hoped was not too little too late.


	5. Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forgiveness is a language composed of countless dialects, and we are all foreigners in each other's homes.

Midway through the first responding letter, Crowley hit a snag that had nothing to do with history and emotion and everything to do with the perfectionist in him. He reached for the second sheet of paper and finally realized the state of his office. Aziraphale's letters were around him in a circle along, and on top of or beside the papers were the tokens sent with them. He had not fully acknowledged just how much the angel sent him until now and he did not have the room to address the...the 'project' he would call it. Then, he thought of how he was going to arrange his responding letters and the walls felt like they were closing in while embers sparked beneath his skin. He railed against the clutter and the disorganized mess in his future.

What was he going to do? Thrust an entire pile of envelopes into Aziraphale's arms in the event he found the angel? (By now, he no longer accepted this was impossible. Crowley _would_ find a way. He _would_ make it happen, and woe be to whatever tried to stop him. Failure was not an option.)

So, he set his first letter aside and poured himself a glass of wine as he attempted to figure out a proper plan.

He was on his third glass when his door was knocked at. His annoyance was intense and immediate. "What?" he barked. 

"Mister Crowley." It was Tina.

The demon sighed heavily and lowered his wine glass onto the table, forced himself sober. "I thought you had the day off, Tina. Whole staff did," Crowley said after he opened the door part way. 

"That was the day before yesterday," Tina reminded. The club had since reopened and saw business without a peep out of the owner.

He was losing his awareness of time.

Crowley said nothing. This would have mattered to him a few months ago. The schedule that kept this club going was important. The humans working in it were meant to follow all of it the way he wanted and most of them did because he was always around to be sure the machine was nicely oiled. Now, the club was an unnecessary weight dragging him down and getting in the way. 

"Right..." He looked over his shoulder at the letters clamoring for his attention and the suddenly too-small office oppressing him with its walls. "About that."

Loathe as he was to leave his project behind, he had to shed the tight skin that was The Hellfire Club. He had established it long ago after Aziraphale settled into the museum. It seemed to be the logical choice and there was the benefit of having a controlled environment in which he could stir up sin without putting forth much effort. The establishment had been fun for a time and a symbol of power that he craved, but it was an empty box just like so much of his accumulated material wealth. 

"How long have you been with me, Tina? Long time, yeah?" he asked. They did not conduct this business in his office. He did not want to disturb the letters where they lay on the floor and if Tina accidentally stepped on one, he might kill the human. That would not be ideal. 

"Been a while," Tina agreed and, for the first time in so long, Crowley looked at the man. He had lines at the corners of his eyes that were not there when they had first met. He was still a muscular, stocky person but had softened in places. His skin was a little rough from age. Like Aziraphale, Crowley used his power to fiddle with the minds of the humans to ensure they did not realize he never properly aged. Tina did not notice that his boss from close to two decades ago had not gained a single thread of silver in his black hair. 

Crowley averted his eyes from the blatant mortality of his bartender to study the club. The decorations for the New Year celebration were still hanging. "You did it all correctly," he said rather than get straight to the point. He was numb at the time, but a part of him noticed the arrangement. The planets holding projectors were artfully crafted and realistic in appearance. The replica of Venus, when activated, contained colorful smoke that rolled within the glass sphere. There was a bittersweet pang of nostalgia and longing when he was in the presence of such things that he could do nothing else but endure. "The stars and where they are meant to be in the sky here."

Tina raised a brow but he nodded. "Always liked astronomy," he explained. "Studied that in uni."

The demon's eyes were fixed upon him. He had not cared about his employees outside of their capability to work and potential soul collecting. When he looked at them, looked _into_ them, he could see the tarnish of their sins upon their souls and knew the name of each act. He could sniff out what would lead them farther down the path to Hell. He did not think about what they did otherwise. "Astronomy in uni? And you decided to do this instead?" 

His tone was offensive but his curiosity genuine. Tina, accustomed to Crowley's behavior, shrugged it off. "Didn't want to make work out of what I loved, is all." That was the short answer to what must have been a long, complicated and hard process of soul searching for the man. There was an entire story filled with other people and Tina at its center. Crowley could not put a name to the discomfort he felt. 

The cardboard cutout painted with minor sins was a person in his presence for a chunk of time and Crowley never knew anything about him until now. Had never cared.

If he allowed himself to examine the situation in its entirety, he might have realized the name to what he felt was 'regret', but he was not ready to take on more than he was already.

Not yet.

The arrangements of signing the club over to Tina proceeded smoothly and quietly. The man would change the name and would change almost everything else about it. 

Crowley regained a fragment of peace that comes of closing an old and tired chapter.

~*~

After Eden, there was a period of time Crowley viewed as a calm before the monumental storm that was the birth of civilization. There were only two humans, and then a third, eventually a fourth. As far as Aziraphale and Crowley were concerned, both sides were quiet and biding their time. It was as if the universe itself was holding its breath and waiting.

"Still no word from anyone," Aziraphale confessed in hushed tones. His fingers were pressing together below his chest. The tips rubbed over his knuckles or laced into each other.

"None from mine, either," replied Crowley, considerably less anxious over the fact than his companion. He reached out to settle a hand over Aziraphale's fidgeting pair and curled his fingers loosely around them.

He was content with Hell ignoring him. He dreaded going back. Aziraphale, on the other hand, worried endlessly.

Rain was falling on them and the nervous angel huddled with the demon. They had experienced the first rainfall long ago and Crowley was still embarrassed by his reaction to it. At the time, he could not be certain that the water was not blessed and intended to destroy him for tempting Eve. He had realized in that moment, as he clutched the front of Aziraphale's robes and ducked beneath the angel's wings that the chance to go into Eden was less of a gift and more of a sign of how expendable he was. The angels could have done worse than smite him, but render him extinct with little effort. Anything else could have gone wrong in this new and uncertain world where the rules were not yet known and the possibilities endless. Why send a prince or a duke when a lowly, crawling demon of no rank could test the waters. No one would miss him if he was lost forever. No one would care.

Aziraphale had not questioned the way he held on, refusing to let a drop hit him. The angel's head had tilted back and he looked to the sky, blinking away at the droplets hitting his eyes. In his panicked state, Crowley honed in on all of the small details. He fixated on the droplets clinging to Aziraphale's eyelashes and the rivulets making tracks over his round cheeks and the column of his throat.

"You are safe," Aziraphale told him and Crowley, not wanting to trust him but having no other option, reached out to feel the water on the angel's cheek. Then, he extended his arm outside of the protective covering of Aziraphale's wing to catch the rain in the palm of his hand. He was unable to shake the fear until the years had passed, until he was leaning into Aziraphale's soft shoulder as they swapped news - or the lack of news as it were - without a second thought spared to the heavy rainfall.

They had agreed, after endless complaining on Crowley's part, that there was not a lot that they could do at the moment. Watching Adam and Eve with their child was tedious at the best of times and Crowley was on the brink of a tantrum. A demonic one. So, in an effort to preserve their mutual sanity, they set off to explore the untouched world. Now they were in a forest where the rain was constant.

Naturally, Crowley had to touch as much of it as possible. He had to leave a mark.

He _had_ to mean something, leave evidence behind that he had existed. He had been in this world and he had played a part.

"What _are_ you doing?" Aziraphale questioned with the kind of exasperated tone of voice that Crowley associated with feigned disapproval. The angel made a lot of noise about 'No, don't, I am certain that is not allowed.' and 'You will scare the humans, demon, stop that immediately!' but when he used this particular tone, there was an underlying curiosity. Despite himself, he wanted to know what Crowley was about to do and couldn't quite bring himself to stop the demon right away. 

"Look at all of this rock," Crowley said. He had left Aziraphale's side to prowl around their resting spot. All around them were verdant plants and tall trees except for a wall of stone that raised up into the canopy. Unlike the walls of Eden, this one was not perfectly smooth or straight. Crowley rubbed his palm against the smoothest surface available, mapping it out in his mind's eye. He knew what he would do here.

"I am looking at it." Aziraphale was standing beside him, then. He eyed the wall before he leveled a stare on Crowley. "Another carving, demon?"

Crowley dipped his head forward to bring himself a little closer to Aziraphale's. " _Yes_. Going to stop me, angel?" he drawled. His tone was sinister, but it was a toothless threat. 

Aziraphale held his stare, unflinching and unamused. Then, with a huff, he looked at the wall. "Oh, get on with it, then," he sighed. He would not or could not say it in those days, but Crowley caught the angel admiring the work after he had finished. The knowledge had fed a starving part of the demon. The gnashing, furious and twisted creature was caged within a fragile cocoon of this quiet companionship they shared for close to a century. He did not want it to end.

But all eventually must. 

Neither had anticipated the angel and Crowley, so accustomed now to Aziraphale's angelic presence, did not register the taste of divinity in the air as a danger to him. 

When he stood with his back against a wall he had decorated with his markings and maps of the night sky, he remembered why he had become so taken with Aziraphale. Unlike the being hovering in the air above him, Aziraphale was...He was...

The archangel was difficult to look at directly. It shined with the light of the stars and its form was one of devastating, terrible perfection. In its luminous eyes was the cold compassion and sterile love of all angels (no, not all) with the power of righteous fury concentrated on Crowley. He remembered in that moment just how small he was in terms of demonic strength and prowess. He was an insect beneath the _thing_ spreading its wings as it raised its shining staff into the clouds. There were no words, only the sense that it would end him and believed that it was performing an act of benevolent mercy upon his wretched essence.

It had come in search for Aziraphale. Crowley did not have to ask to understand that and could not have formed the words if he tried. All of his worst fears were taking place. Seconds slowed and stretched and the emptiness of oblivion yawned before him.

He never saw the edge of a sharp stone coming, but he felt its bite into his exposed throat. 

Instead of the permanent death the archangel promised, he was given a temporary kind. Discorporating was new to him. Later, much later, the event would be a painful inconvenience but nothing shocking but as his body's lifeblood flowed freely and his eyes met Aziraphale's, something in him shattered.

Hundreds of years on earth would pass before he was given the opportunity to claw his way back up to the earth with the poisonous thirst for revenge in his heart.

~*~

Crowley lowered the stone rubbing of a serpent twisting and curling around itself. The elements and time had weathered the elaborate details but he could remember them as clear as if he had made it yesterday. He recalled applying miracles to preserve the work but knew they were undone long ago.

The letter that had come with the rubbing was one he had read only one time before. 

_Crowley,_

_Mount Lico is as beautiful as I remember. It remains one of the few areas of the world that has not changed as much as others where you and I once walked. I fear that will soon change. Our humans are forever discovering the mysteries of the world, leaving no stone unturned. You have plenty to say about that, I know, but they mean well._

_I remember Lico with such fondness, no matter how our time here ended. You will be pleased to know that I found a bit of your mischief remains. Enclosed is a rubbing of the mark you left behind. This was my favorite of them and outlived the rest._

_Yours,  
Aziraphale_

_P.S. I never asked you myself, not in so many words, that you forgive me. Perhaps some day we may return to Mount Lico together if you should want to do so._

His writing paled by the post script. The ink softened and his letters wobbled from a hesitant hand. Crowley traced the fading lines and wondered...

He had yet to find it in himself to pick up his pen and write his response to _this_. How does one respond to the first betrayal? The first and deepest cut? How does one apologize for refusing to accept that there had been no betrayal in the first place, but a terrible and unfortunate misunderstanding? Crowley had allowed so much time pass after the realization stuck him and Aziraphale was often incapable of directly talking about his personal feelings. He talked _around_ them.

Neither of them were particularly good at it, truth be told. Where they were now could hardly be surprising. 

_Angel, _Crowley wrote.__

__He stared at the word then crossed it out so viciously that the paper tore. With a snarl, he tore it up and threw it at the wall of the lavish hotel room he currently occupied. Tomorrow, he would board a plane to America. Anathema may not remember Aziraphale but she was a genuine witch. He would make use of her power where his own inexplicably failed._ _

__When he was able to hold the pen without screaming, he began to write._ _

_My angel,_

_I forgave you a long time ago. Remember Holi in Rajasthan?_  


__He was not satisfied with these two lines. They did not look like enough and did not feel like enough. This paper joined the other crumpled heap across the room._ _


	6. The Demon & The Tea Kettle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Writing under the influence may result in literary wrecks. Please drink responsibly.

Crowley lay sprawled out upon the hotel bed and stared holes into the ceiling. There were piles of crumpled paper everywhere and a dozen empty bottles of wine. His frustration with responding to Aziraphale's request for forgiveness had reached a fevered pitch and, as always, he approached the problems that caused him a certain level of distress by consuming as much fermented grain and fruit as he could get his hands on - an unlimited amount, as it happens, because he was a demon with the ability to make stuff appear at will. The wine failed to give him inspiration, filthy traitor that it was. All it did, all wine _ever_ did, was open the floodgates so that every thought that entered Crowley's head spilled everywhere. It was messy. He did not like messy. Hated it, really. Hell was a messy and disorganized place. Hell was dismal and filthy, all clutter and bad sounds and smells. And pain. _Oh_ there was loads of pain and suffering and always knowing that things can and would be worse because that was the _point_. Because it was Hell. Wasn't meant to be good. 

It was everything Crowley hated. Crowley was messy despite all of his efforts to be everything but. No amount of sharp dressing, expensive shades and cool, unaffected demeanor could fully conceal it. His thoughts were messy, his feelings (which he insisted he didn't have) were messy. They bubbled up and spilled over always in the worst possible ways. 

Did he hate himself, then? Was _he_ Hell? 

"'M a demon. 'Course I'm...Hell...ish. Hell adjacent?" He scrunched his face up and searched the room.

There was no one around to hear him or answer him except for the discarded papers and an ugly painting of flowers on the wall. If Aziraphale was around, the angel would have made a valiant effort to try and would probably say something innocently insensitive like _'Well of course. You are an agent of Hell. A demon. That is precisely **what** you are.'_ but less eloquent because the he would be soused, too. Aziraphale did not know what the thoughts were preceding a comment like that, of course. Even his hypothetical Aziraphale was aggressively kind and well-meaning. If he had a single idea what went on in Crowley's head, what then? So much, the angel did not know. He could fill entire books with all the things Aziraphale did not know about him.

For example, Aziraphale knew nothing of the way Crowley thought about him after that first discorporating. 

Crowley had _plenty_ of time in Hell to think about Aziraphale and everything he would do to the angel when he returned to the surface. Every torment and punishment he suffered was used as fuel to harden his resolve. He would not kill him quickly, but draw the experience out, make it _last_ , so that the angel would know the extent his suffering. He would make Aziraphale taste the bitter flavor of betrayal on his tongue before Crowley cut the blessed thing out of his mouth.

It took a lot of fighting tooth and nail to place himself in the opportune situation that would allow him the chance, but also saying the right words and pleasing the right people. A horde of demons was to go up to the earth with the vague objective to sow discord whenever and wherever possible. They were expected to report back to Hell on their deeds but were, for the most part, going to be without supervision. That suited Crowley well. He expected the victory he would claim over discorporating a Principality would boost him far enough up the ladder and as far from the infernal pits as possible. 

But then he found Aziraphale and made the mistake of hesitating, of laying eyes upon him. Aziraphale was like a cumulus plucked from the sky and given a voice, all rounded and soft and so unlike the other angels Crowley had run afoul of. The worry in his eyes (so blue, so wide and expressive) and in the timbre of his voice cut straight into the shredded, wounded core that was ripped into him since Falling and had never healed. He was dangerous in that way. With a single concerned word and glance, he could drive hundreds of years worth of vengeful plotting out Crowley's brain. 

And Aziraphale had no idea, not a single clue. Crowley did, though. He saw the angel as the danger he was and kept him at arm's length with callous treatment and an acerbic tongue. Unlike Aziraphale, he could not afford to be soft. Soft hearts did not survive Hell and survival was all that he had.

Books. Entire books could be filled but what a terrible story that would be, he thought. Depressing drivel. This was the story Aziraphale wanted to hear.

"That's it!" he crowed and the sudden, excited flailing resulted in wine spilling onto the duvet from his glass. "A _book_. Oh, that's brilliant. He'll like that."

The _method_ of handing over his answers to Aziraphale was a problem that had niggled at the back of his mind for a while. Aziraphale would, without a doubt, have no issue with accepting a pile of envelopes, but the idea rankled Crowley. Presenting all of it in a book form, however, would be just the thing.

He rolled off of the bed and stumbled to the table, wineglass in hand. First, he needed a cover. The cover that he imagined into existence was thick, yet supple black leather. Already formed into the proper shape, he took everything Aziraphale had written and lined the stack up with the spine where the thread and glue automatically manifested the way Crowley believed that it should. (Crowley actually knew very little about book binding. That was Aizraphale's realm of expertise.) There were the bits and pieces, too, that had come with the letters: the silk, the piece of a manuscript, jade, and oyster shell, the coin from Rome, the apple seeds and other small objects. These were encased in leather containers with glass slides for viewing, then inserted as dividers between letters. 

Crowley held the book in his hands. He liked the weight of it. The scent and texture of the leather was particularly pleasing. He thought the front could use a decoration of some kind, perhaps silver engraving and something for the spine. All that was left...all that he needed to do now was actually respond to Aziraphale in a meaningful way.

He had a fully formed book now and there was only half substance within. Amazing what one could accomplish when avoiding the undesirable. 

So.

Aziraphale wanted _direct_ forgiveness for what happened thousands of years ago. This sounded silly without context on both ends. Why was Aziraphale fixated on something from so long ago? Why was Crowley? They had obviously gotten over it at some point if their constant presence in each other's lives through the ages meant anything. Context was needed. Given that they were immortal beings that existed at a place _before_ time existed, a few thousand years could have been compared to a couple of years, but also even longer all at the same time.

Suddenly, the tie he wore felt too tight around his neck. The nicely tailored suit was constricting. He yanked at the tie and worked loose a few buttons. The jacket was shrugged off and tossed onto the bed. Divesting himself of these things did not help as much as he hoped, because they were more like shards to a mirror, reflecting fragments of truth into his eyes.

A familiar ringing had started in his head. It was dull at first, a soft whistle that indicated there was a problem. The problem was the one Crowley ignored, and the whistling reached a higher pitch until he was in danger of exploding. There was nothing and no one around to explode at. That gave him another idea.

He refilled his wineglass. More wine was going to make his writing sloppy and his wording a disjointed, rambling nightmare but that was just as well because Aziraphale needed to _see_. Maybe once he did, maybe then he would do what he should have ages ago. 

Crowley grabbed his pen and opened the book to the blank page behind the 'Mount Lico' letter.

_'Hey Angel,_

_You have trouble following my analogies. You always interrupt them when I'm talking and that throws me off. You can't do that with my paper. When you read this, you sit down and you keep reading. Don't stop to ask me about anything if I'm around when you do. Just read it. Got it?_

_Imagine a tea kettle. There's this tea kettle and it's a very attractive kettle. Has nice cheekbones, people tell it, and it does what it's meant to do. It holds the water that's needed for the tea. The water gets hotter and hotter, then boils until its whistling, but then the whistle never stops. Keeps whistling, that bugger, and the water's gone bad so the tea's bad. Everything is ruined. 'Well now,' Someone says, 'This just won't do, will it? All this noise and the spoiled insides.' So what does Someone do but throw the kettle into the rubbish because they've other kettles. The end, yeah?_

_Ah, but that's where you're wrong, angel. The kettle can still be used. It's someone else's problem now. They'll hammer it into shape. REALLY hammer it again and again with big nails and other pointy implements to make holes where there weren't any and patch over spots that never needed it. The kettle squeals all the same and the water is still bad. Poisons the tea._

_And the kettle? All the kettle wants is to continue being a kettle, and not smashed for scraps or melted down until it doesn't exist any more._

_I'm the kettle. I'm this thing filled with all the bad stuff, boiling inside, always boiling and making noise. That's me._

_Then there's you, the stupid bloody angel that grabs on with naked hands every time no matter how much it burns you.'  
_

Outside of the room, Crowley could make out the noises of traffic. The cold winter air was coming in through the window he had left open. He felt not altogether a part of his body in that moment, even with the noise in his ears and the chill sinking deep into his flesh. The wine he was drinking tasted sour on his tongue, but the discomfort was happening to someone else.

He took his shades off to rub a hand down his face. The thread of thought was fraying and along with it his courage. 

The pen was set aside and the book closed. This was going to be a problem for Sober Crowley later.

~*~

Sober Crowley did not, in fact, find courage to even look at the entry much less write anything. He packed the book in his suitcase with the care one reserves for a ticking time bomb, cleaned himself up, then went on to the airport. That he did not burn his writing yet was a miracle. There was still time. He still may spare Aziraphale's eyes from having to see _that_.

He _would_ hand the book over once he found the angel, however, with or without the embarrassing half-formed letter. The rest of the book was perfectly acceptable and he even had his sketchbook out to find a few nice drawings to add (and definitely were not meant to distract from his failure to write anything). Perhaps then they could sit down and look at it together. 

Crowley grit his teeth, his fingers digging into the cardboard backing of his opened sketchbook. The cloying, saccharine tripe coming from his own head these last days was doing terrible things to his pride. There was nothing to do for it except squirm and bear the terrible possibility that he was going soft. It was the most uncool thing he had done in a very long time. No one else had to know and he would make sure of _that_. 

This was all Aziraphale's fault.

Around him, the Terminal 4 of Heathrow Airport (one of his demonic works) was the usual miasma of discontent. Shuttles were late, planes were late, baggage claim was a nightmare and there was a litany of other problems that could drive a human to the brink of considering murder. Crowley soaked all of it in and let the frustrations of humanity wash away his discomfort like a soothing rain in summer. All around him was evidence that he was still properly demonic. That his plane was delayed by several hours was something he chose to ignore. Focus only on the good. Or bad, rather.

Boredom wormed in despite his resolve to enjoy the chaos surrounding him. He opened the sketchbook to idly flip through the pages. His mobile rang as reached the drawing of Aziraphale as he appeared during the 1920s; they had attended more parties than Crowley could remember since he had consumed enough alcohol to embalm an army. Aziraphale had been an eye-catching figure, always clad in white with that downy hair that was all curl and wisp. The only colour one could hope to find was the blue of his eyes and the powder upon his eyelids. He had lined them as well.

_'Going to dance, angel, or is all that beneath you?'_

_'Heavens, no. I- Well, I only ever learned the Gavotte, you understand. I would need an age to learn all of this.'_

Through the fog, somehow Crowley convinced him, accomplished tempter that he was. He also could recall they were both rubbish at it but everyone in attendance was so hopelessly blotto that it hardly mattered anyway.

His mobile rang before he could turn to the next page and when he saw the number flash upon the screen, his mouth stretched into a wolfish grin. She could not see it, but maybe she could hear it in his voice. He did hope so.

" _Miss Device_ ," he purred. "I thought you had blocked my number. Have you had a change of heart?"

Crowley liked to imagine she was seething in spite of his need for her to cooperate and _want_ to help him. By now, he had the theory that whatever happened was Heavenly by nature so his demonic energies were ineffective in locating the angel. He and Aziraphale established during the apocalypse that Anathema was neither of 'theirs', thus marking her as a uniquely neutral party.

"Why are you coming here?" Anathema demanded. The demon's brows hiked upward. He knew she was the genuine thing and yet he did not anticipate her swift and accurate prediction.

"I would think my emails and voice mails would have made that apparent but if you need me to spell it out for you again, I know you humans have a short attention span and-" 

She cut him off. "Why do you need me for that? Can't you put in a missing person's report? That's what you do when someone is lost. You report it."

"That doesn't work for people like us," he answered truthfully. That did not mean he had not tried, of course. He shoved his drawings of Aziraphale into enough faces in hopes that the image would jog someone's memory. The only person that reacted with any glimmer of recognition was the Pulsifer janitor but he ultimately could give no valuable information to Crowley aside from the maddening hope that all of this was temporary. "Which is why I need your convenient gifts." He turned the page as he listened to her sigh. It had only taken him a couple of months but he had finally broken her. He patted himself on the back for a job well done.

"Your flight is going to be delayed by three more hours," she said before she hung up without allowing him the last word.

Crowley frowned at his phone, uneasy. Had she hexed him just now or was she merely making one of her accurate predictions? He supposed he would not know for sure, one way or the other.

"Could always try flying the old way, I suppose," he said to himself, not caring that there were people near by that could hear him. "Been a while since I gave them a proper stretch, though. Might fall into the bloody ocean like a git and be discorporated." He sighed, recalling Satan's last words to him. "And there's no coming back after that. Not...not any more now." 

All of his good humor evaporated with the realization, leaving him cold and on edge. 

The Devil himself had made his vague threat not so long ago. Seven years was nothing to immortal beings such as himself and Crowley never could shake the idea that everything was going to go wrong again, and soon. _'Hasn't it already?'_ his mind unhelpfully suggested. _'All gone pear-shaped and here you are a sitting duck.'_ Suddenly, the grim possibilities were flashing before his eyes. He imagined the plane spontaneously exploding or falling into the ocean before he could escape. Demons could be waiting around a corner to discorporate him. They would drag him down to Hell where an eternity of punishing torment awaited with no hope of ever escaping. If that happened, he would never learn what became of Aziraphale. He would never have a chance to mend what he had broken, would never be able to make it right.

_So much time he had wasted to reach this point at all..._

He was fumbling for his phone to call Anathema back. There were other ways to travel, less mundane, quicker ways. If he could only get her to answer. He knew even before he heard her voicemail that she was not going to. Why would she? She had every reason not to answer. No, he was going to have to take the plane and the risk it posed. This had to be what mortality felt like and he cared for it not at all.

"Pre-flight jitters?" asked an elderly man to his right. He flinched when Crowley flinched, but raised a warm and easy smile after. "Don't you worry, lad. The conditions are good for a smooth flight. Used to be a pilot, me. You'll see."

The reassuring words were accepted for the kindness they were intended to be. Still, he was sinking under the crushing weight of knowing this was his last chance in every conceivable way.


	7. Dread & Sensibility

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is it only fear that drives you?

Crowley would never forget the day he first saw a plane in the sky.

The chilly morning air of the North Carolina beach was biting through the long black coat he wore. Beside him in white stood Aziraphale because they had rarely parted from each other, especially when something momentous was taking place in the world. The humans did not see them because they did not wish to be seen, so they did not keep much of a distance from the plane itself - Crowley had wanted to get a good look at it before anything happened. Just in case, he said, and Aziraphale was in firm agreement. The year was 1903 and the Wright brothers were about to make their marks in history. 

By then, Crowley had developed his grim and unforgiving outlook towards the world and humanity. Millenia of witnessing their very worst acts and having a hand in making subtle pushes to lead them there (Though not always, he muttered to Aziraphale, not always. The humans were perfectly capable of being awful all on their own.) had taken its toll little by little. He had always known what Heaven and Hell were working towards, always knew what Earth's eventual fate was meant to be. Aziraphale did try to tell him not to despair so soon, to 'look on the bright side' or spoke of ineffability but Crowley pictured himself as a realist and pointed at all of the signs supporting _his_ belief that everything was going to be gone some day. If the humans did not destroy the earth and each other first, then the forces of Upstairs and Down were going to do the job for them. What was the point, he had asked Aziraphale over countless bottles of wine, in caring? Masochism, that's what that was and he'd had quite enough of pain.

Aziraphale had always looked at him in those dark moments, his brows lifted and furrowed and his mouth curved in a ghost of a frown. Crowley had always interpreted this face in different ways, depending upon his mood. Sometimes he thought the angel was annoyed with him, other times saddened or exasperated. What he failed to grasp was, at its heart, was deep concern.

There were still moments, however, when diligently constructed walls of apathy and disdain ( _disappointment_ , _weariness_ ) were breached. When the plane successfully flew above them, he shared an excited smile with Aziraphale and felt a kind of warmth curl and climb inside him like a persistent vine. He was proud of them. They had finally gotten it right, the whole flying thing. There was still time needed to perfect the science and to perfect the machines but they were taking the right steps. 

Somehow, the humans always wiggled their ways back _in_ , and awakened a spark of intrigue, of _wonder_. The bastards. The great, wonderful, clever bastards.

He and Aziraphale had wings and could truly fly but both agreed that they would like to ride in a plane some day.

Now, close to a hundred years later, he was (and had been many times in the past) in the first class seating of the kind of airplane the Wright brothers could only have dreamed of. The planes lasted so much longer and could go so much farther. They were comfortable, luxurious, _safe_ and never did the demon so desperately want _out_ of the bloody thing more. He wanted to be on solid and steady land where the threat of discorporating was not whistling in his ears.

Mortality was a subject he had contemplated plenty of times in the past, alone, with philosophers or drunks and more frequently than not with Aziraphale. It was an abstract concept for the likes of himself and the angel. How could entities such as themselves appreciate that state of being in quite the same ways as the humans did? They, who were in possession of limitless 'chances' in the physical realm, could not fully realize the terror of embarking on journeys in the air or on ships where the forces of nature could simply decide 'nah, not today' and ruin everything.

Crowley did now, though. He had sampled the flavor whilst sitting in the airport waiting. In the air with the frigid Atlantic beneath him, the full course was settling in his gut like a lead ball. He handled it with as much grace as one might expect by clutching his briefcase to his chest and gazing with unblinking terror out of the window. A wall of unadulterated anxiety flowed from his rigid figure and filled up first class before sliding through the rest of the plane. It made the alcohol taste sour and the snacks offered by the attendants go stale. Inconsolable babies were crying and no one could sleep despite their best efforts and strong medication. The aura of discontent was one that any demon should have taken pride in but Crowley was not even aware of it, so caught up was he in catastrophic 'what ifs'. 

Perhaps the forces of the universe had enough of _that_ , or celestial forces heard the prayers of many and took pity on the plane's other passengers because eventually, Crowley searched for distraction. He was not going to touch the kettle letter and would much rather pretend that it did not exist, but that did not mean he could not write something else _somewhere_ else in the book. 

Sections were flipped through in search of an item or a letter he could respond to. There was nothing he had to say about the time in Japan that was being referenced. That had been a relatively pleasant and uneventful spot in history for them. No dark, guilty corners to contemplate and inspect there, shockingly. Aziraphale had been lured in by the prospect of a novel being written by one of the noble ladies and stayed for everything else the Heian court had to offer. Crowley followed, ever Aziraphale's dark and snarky shadow.

When he reached the leather divider holding the oyster shell and Roman coins, well...A devious smirk bloomed and his tongue dragged slowly across the backs of his teeth. He fondly recalled the lascivious way he ruined oysters for Aziraphale. To this very day, the angel sometimes turned fascinating shades of red under the right (or wrong) circumstances should they be mentioned or if he spotted them in person. Worse was if someone was in the process of eating them. _Interesting_ that Aziraphale sent one to him, now that he thought about it. Very interesting. Crowley could not decide on whether this was a passive aggressive reminder (the angel should know better because the demon would never, ever feel guilty about that misdeed) or something else entirely. He put a pin in that for later. 

Next was the ornament that he originally believed to have belonged to the empress. Aziraphale had even said as much in his letter but the longer Crowley looked at it, the more he knew that was not true and was certain the angel knew it. The circle of jade was thinner now, much like the game piece for their checker board. Someone had touched it repeatedly, rubbed the surface until the serpent etching was almost worn away. _He_ had given that to Aziraphale after the angel lost yet another game of weiqi. ' _You lost. **Again**. You've got to wear my token now._' At the time, he had insinuated that Aziraphale carrying around a symbol of the serpent was a proper 'punishment' for losing their game matches. To think, an angel carrying around a demon's emblem! How very unangelic of him to do that. The excuse was painfully flimsy even then and he was embarrassed at this past version of himself.

Aziraphale had kept it all of this time. The demon could convince himself that this was because the angel was constantly losing but...

Crowley turned to the empty page behind it and pressed his pen to the paper.

_'Angel,_

_I'm in a plane right now and I don't like it anymore. We're never doing planes again. Too risky. I'll tell you why later after you've read this since I don't trust some details staying on paper. That's risky, too.'_

~*~

Whatever Crowley had expected out of Anathema Device, a modern chic penthouse in Malibu was not it. Like many of the humans existing in his orbit, he knew almost nothing about her. She was Aziraphale's assistant - the angel's weirdest one to date - and a genuine witch. She also aided in preventing the apocalypse, so there was that, too. He had only the vaguest notion of her age and the understanding that she had moxy, what with her absolute lack of fear in the presence of a demon and an angel. Witnessing the pair of ancient beings chat and bicker over checkers every Thursday for a handful of years might have had something to do with that.

Now that she supposedly did not know who Aziraphale was, he was even more wrong-footed where the woman was concerned. This left him standing in the late afternoon light outside of her nice Malibu home without knowing how to approach the situation which was very frustrating because he had come all of this way - a long and harrowing flight (that went off without a hitch, as the airport human promised) and playing leapfrog through telephone lines. 

He stared at his reflection in floor to ceiling windows facing a swimming pool. The longer he stared the more uncomfortable he felt about what he was seeing until he was pulling his tie loose and undoing the first couple of buttons of his shirt. When that did not make him feel better, he unbuttoned his cuffs and began to shrug the blazer. It was when he began to reach up for his hair that Anathema darted out of the house, eyes wide and incredulous behind her glasses.

"Wh- How!? Why are you stripping? Stop stripping!" she cried out. Crowley paused, fingers ruffling his hair and digging the toe of one shoe into the heel of the other, to take note of her. 

"Ermm...nn...'M not," he said after a delaying moment of uncertain humming and half-started words. Ordinarily, he would have had something to say, some kind of quip or suggestive statement meant to provoke a reaction. He did not quite have the full measure of her and remained uncertain of her hexing capabilities. For once, he elected not to bother her deliberately. He needed her help. "Was making myself comfortable."

This was not an answer that pleased Anathema, judging by the staring. Her eyes managed to go wider. "You're on the second floor," she pointed out.

Crowley looked over his shoulder at the pool and the enormous boulder attached to it. "Mmm...yeah. Flew. Landed here."

The silence between them was tense and lingering until Anathema finally sighed. "Okay. Come in." 

Anathema led Crowley through the house without giving him an opportunity to examine the tidy interior, stopping only once they had reached the top floor and were confined within a windowless room. Covering three walls were shelves laden with books that, at a glance, Crowley knew Aziraphale would have paid a king's ransom to get his hands on. The tomes were old yet maintained well and undoubtedly filled with all manner of arcane knowledge if Crowley's assumptions were correct. In the center of the room was a desk with a chair on either side and scattered across its surface were the standard supplies one might expect to find in an office. 

"Sit here. Do you want any tea or coffee?" Anathema asked as she took the seat behind the desk, leaving him to settle in the one across from her. 

"Erm...naaah..." Crowley started. Somewhere between landing by the pool and sitting down with his things, he had become unsure of himself. He felt it in the way his shoulders were curving inward and his spine bending to complete a slouch. What was he to do with this witch now? He had come all of this way and there was the possibility that she might be able to do nothing at all for him. Doubts that already had their hooks in began to wiggle and tug. "I've got- Nn...I've got stuff. Drawings. Only you've seen 'em already. What do you need? To find him?" He took the best drawings out anyway and held them out to her. Just in case. 

The hardness in Anathema's eyes softened and her shoulders sagged. Crowley was not sure if he liked that or not. His insides tightened. "What have you tried? Let's start there."

Crowley had not taken into account how uncomfortable the act of spelling out all of his efforts to another person would make him. He was glad for his shades when he explained the pictures he waved under people's noses, and for how long he did that, because she would not see the way his eyes averted constantly in search for something - _anything_ \- other than the witch. Crowley did not go into details about the letters or the items that had come with them nor their significance - she couldn't have that, **nobody** was allowed to have that. He refused, but he could tell her about all of the people that had known Aziraphale for so long and _all the ways_ they had known him. There was history, he explained. Even she knew him, he insisted. She actually _liked_ Aziraphale, and the angel liked her, too.

"See, you know me, yeah? Y'remember me." When she nodded, his mouth was excitably running before he could get a handle on what he was trying to say. "Know I'm what I am and everything. Y'even remember the bit with the. The ending. Or the not-ending."

He waited to sniff out a lie. This was the moment where he could detect any trickery now that she was directly there in front of him, in the flesh. Something _was_ off, too, but it was not deceit. The scent of an unnameable power both alien and familiar was upon her. 

"Do you have something that belongs to him?" Anathema asked. She extended her hand across the desk. Crowley hesitated and floundered. He could take the book apart, perhaps- Then he remembered the game piece tucked into his discarded blazer. He rubbed the white marble checker between his fingertips before placing it, along with his fragile hope, into her waiting palm.

Yet again, Crowley did not know what to expect. Witches had peculiar methods, each as different as the next. Anathema could do something flashy for all he knew, with all the powders and ancient tongues and blood. He leaned forward in his chair, eyes keen upon her, wary and intrigued. A tiny part of him that was not desperately clinging to the hope of proper results hoped to witness wild incantations and Hollywood styled, utterly bogus magic.

Instead, Anathema searched for a series of maps and a pendulum which she held in her unoccupied hand. The first map she spread across the desk was one of the world. "When I tell you to, grab a different map and stick it under the pendulum," she instructed. 

So it would be the sensible route, then. He was relieved and at the same time disappointed, but the disappointed part was that tiny thing that wanted entertainment.

Crowley was on his feet in an instant, his focus locked on the amethyst dangling by a chain over the world. The way Anathema held it over the map and gently moved her hand to follow the pendulum's movements brought to mind his and Aziraphale's methods of locating the Antichrist with darts. Why had he not thought of that? (The truth was, he hadn't the confidence to try.) 

"Map of England," Anathema ordered and his compliance was immediate. 

Both held their breath and leaned forward, eyes locked on the rotating pendulum until it came to a stop above Tadfield. Crowley stared hard at the location, his cheek twitching and his grip on the edge of the desk taking a steel-bending turn. He could feel the wood splintering against his palms. Crowley was not sure how much time passed that way. Maybe a minute. Maybe a few seconds. He threw himself from the desk, first to grab his briefcase and then to fish his phone out of his pocket. There was not a phone in Tadfield that was going to escape his call. He would ring every single one again and again and again until someone answered him.

Dread built up like ice in his chest and sank into his gut. He paced as if to outrun it. If he kept moving, he could give himself the illusion of going there faster.

"Wait. Crowley." 

Crowley froze mid-step, eyes locking on the woman without properly seeing her. All he could really see was his own panic and a movie reel flickering of what Tadfield had last served as the stage for. He was so trapped in his worst fears that he missed how close she had come to him until she was dropping the marble checker piece into his pocket. "Don't forget that," she said with the gentleness one reserves for cornered, injured animals.

The demon swallowed hard and lowered his briefcase to pat the pocket for the familiar shape of the piece. Its presence gave him a grain of comfort. "Thanks" he croaked. "Thank you."


	8. Rock Bottom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What does one do when they climb the perilous mountain to finally fight their adversary only to find a mirror waiting at the top?

Tadfield had changed in ways both subtle and obvious over the years following the unsuccessful apocalypse. While never an unpleasant place, there was a difference in the atmosphere, one could say. People that called it home or had stayed for a few weeks became just a little softer with each other and with visitors. It was as if a net of contentedness had been cast and all caught within were touched with a sense of peace that the swiftly moving world did not often provide. Tadfield had become a favored holiday location for this reason, but few recognized this fact directly. Mostly, they enjoyed the quaint homes and buildings, the beach and the pier that had become a 'Little Brighton' after it was restored. The pier was not half as large as its famous cousin but its baroque theme had a certain charm.

What had once been an average sort of place had become an idyllic dream. A place that was _loved_.

Crowley could feel it the second his Bentley reached the boundaries like static popping across his skin. He recognized the energy as it was the same alien-yet-familiar sort that had clung to Anathema. The wheel beneath his hands creaked when his fingers tightened beyond what should have been possible. 

He had not had an easy nor quick time of making it this far. So many hours worth of mishaps that resulted in a number of London phone lines cursed to forever carry the faint echo of Hell in their dial tones - Absolutely no one in Tadfield answered their phones, meaning it was bereft of insomniacs or everyone unanimously agreed to never answer phones in the blackest hours of the morning. - and engines vanishing from cars had pushed Crowley beyond the threshold of screaming anxiety until he reached a peculiar state of serene, numb horror. This was made worse by the perceived indication that the Devil had returned to Tadfield. When everything was too good to be true, what other explanation was there?

As the Bentley rolled by tidy winter gardens and warm, cozy homes, he searched for elephants bearing the Antichrist and listened for songs praising a 'new king'. He searched for deliriously happy people in garishly bright clothing whose mouths were forced into Cheshire grins. He searched for a head of white hair upon a familiar head and found nothing of the sort. Eventually, he reached the house belonging to Madame Tracy and Adam Young. It, too, had changed for the better.

Crowley's heart was in his teeth as he knocked at the door, fully dreading what was waiting on the other side but time ticked onward and there was no answer. Numb horror circled back around to acute, piercing dread and he turned on his heel to leave when he finally heard the telling click and creak of an opening door. The sight that greeted him knocked the air out of his lungs and, for Crowley at least, made the world go still.

"Yes, hello?"

Aziraphale was unharmed. That was what Crowley noticed first. He was in his usual rumpled state, looking as if he had rolled out of bed fully dressed and not a care spent towards the wrinkles in his beige trousers nor the way his white jumper was hanging crookedly off of his rounded shoulders. Not a white hair was out of place and there was not a scratch or bruise on any visible part of his skin. His gaze was curious, lacking any of the tells that would indicate distress of any kind. This was a man-shaped being that was, at present, comfortable and content.

In all of his searching, Crowley never planned for what he would do in the event he at last located Aziraphale. The goal, however much he desired to reach it, seemed far away and filled with hardship. He expected to have to fight _something_ or _someone_ and expected to bleed for it because he had never known anything to come without a struggle or a price. Even now, he was not convinced there was not a trap waiting that had Aziraphale as its bait. That possibility snapped him out of his shocked moment of relief and back into action. He had to get the both of them out of Tadfield before they were caught in the snare.

"Come on, angel, we're leaving," he said after he had already grabbed Aziraphale's arm to pull him from the house and towards the Bentley. His long stride was interrupted by that soft arm wrenching form his grasp. Behind him, Aziraphale was taking several steps backwards to the door.

"I beg your pardon?" Aziraphale demanded. Crowley did not know what to make of the alarm taking over the angel. He saw it in his eyes and in the way he was clasping his hands together. Perhaps it was not alarm, he reasoned, but anger. Anger made sense.

"Look. I-" Crowley started and then cut himself off to swallow down the lump forming in his throat. "I know that I...I. Just get in the car! We'll talk about it on the way back. We aren't safe here!"

"What do you mean?" Aziraphale looked around them. The morning light was growing brighter and though the sky was concealed behind a thin sheet of grey clouds, the weather seemed benign. There was nothing threatening as far as the eye could see, nor any malevolent auras - Crowley's excluded, of course. "Who _are_ you?"

The question was a needle to the ribs. Crowley met Aziraphale's frown with a rather impressive one of his own. The unnecessary heart in his chest was doing a frantic tap dance as a prickling sensation started in the tips of his fingers and toes. His lips were pressing so hard together that he was in danger of losing feeling in them until he parted them again. "What are you playing at, Aziraphale, you know who I am." His voice had become a growl of impatience and budding anger and he regretted the effect immediately. Aziraphale was closing the door part way, shielding himself no doubt, so that Crowley could see only his face.

"I'm truly sorry, but you have the wrong house," he said with the quickness and higher pitch of the frightened. "My...My name is Arthur Young and I am quite safe, thank you."

Everything was going wrong. Crowley could not keep up with the sudden spiraling nose dive in the situation and, true to form, his mouth took off without him. " _Arthur_? Oh, come on, even you can do better than that. Arthur is a stupid bloody name and it's nothing like yours. What do you take me for?" he snarled, hands in fists at his sides and his body tilting forward as if to loom over Aziraphale from a distance. 

They regarded each other for a quiet moment. Aziraphale's mouth was partially opened in either outrage or hurt and Crowley's jaw was clenched. He wanted to think this was a nasty game but his capacity for lying to himself had been reached. No one was playing games, at least no one that was present.

He had not noticed it at first, the missing detail in Aziraphale. The angel's good condition and his own relief at finding him had distracted Crowley from a glaring difference that he was only just now registering. Aziraphale did not feel human, no, but he did not feel like himself. Like an _angel_. The thrum of power and divinity that Crowley typically associated with him was heavily subdued. It was no wonder he could not simply locate him by senses alone.

"You...You really don't know me?" he asked, his voice gone faint. The tension fled his body, leaving it numb. "At all?"

Perhaps Aziraphale could sense it, the new state washing over Crowley that the demon himself had not yet identified, or maybe it was the unsteady manner with which his words were spoken, because his demeanor gentled. His gaze was searching and his frowning took on a more worried curve. Crowley waited for any flash of recognition in those eyes he knew so well. The hope went unanswered. "No," Aziraphale admitted in a softer voice some time later. "I am sorry." With that, he shut the door.

The sound of the lock turning was deafening.

~*~

Night had fallen over Tadfield and tucked away in a cozy bed and breakfast cottage was Crowley. The room he secured had been a twee affair straight out of his worst nightmares decorated with plethora of dolls and delicate, cream lace. It was the sort of style that would have driven him to find another place or, at the very least, miracle changes until the space suited his tastes. There was really only so much he should be expected to tolerate, he would have complained to a person that was not there, but that person was not around to hear him and he found himself mute anyway. Instead, he barely noticed when he sat down at the distressed-wood desk with the leather book opening in front of him.

' _I didn't try to run away this time, Aziraphale. I promise I won't no matter what happens now._ '

The sky still had some light in it when he had written those words down and hours passed with the pen held loosely between his fingers. His mind was far away after the discovery he made at Tadfield Pier.

The last time Crowley stood upon the pier, he faced the entity he attempted to model himself after. The Devil had made a beautiful offer to Crowley in exchange for his compliance and, for the first time in his existence, Crowley refused. He could have gone to Alpha Centauri and be on top of the demonic food chain and he refused it. Despite what was believed of fallen angels, Crowley was not much of a rebel. His Fall had less to do with defiance and more to do with asking questions, those unforgivable _noises_ he could not help making. He learned from _that_ particularly nasty punishment and fell in line in Hell, doing everything that he could to make as few mistakes as possible. If he could become the perfect demon, no one would need to throw him away again, and he would not lose everything he wanted to keep. But what had he to lose other than his life?

Deep inside, in a place he had carefully buried and guarded through the act of neglect, he always had known the answer. The bitter, hateful parts of himself laughed. Hadn't he known better than to get attached? Attachment would only mean suffering. Attachment meant his enemies could hold a powerful tool in their hands against him.

Those harsh and bitter voices were correct, he had at last accepted. What _wouldn't_ he do now to make the offending party give his angel back to him? 

The pier had not yet opened for business by the time he reached it, and the few people setting up for the day did not notice him thanks to his influence over their perception. As his feet carried him past quiet stalls that would later serve sweets and rides that would be filled with happy people, he extended his senses to search for other demons or even angels. Anything was possible, he reasoned. Anything at all. 

What he found was _nothing_. There were no demons ducked around the corner, no Satan upon his throne waiting to exact his vengeance, nor a single enemy angel. Crowley reached the end of the pier and discovered that the only harmful element in all of Tadfield was himself. If he viewed everything that had happened through this lens, the pieces of the grand puzzle shifted and realigned until a clearer picture was presented. 

_Crowley_ was the cause of Aziraphale's present state. Oh, he may not have had a direct hand in the power used to make it happen (a power that was too terrifying to contemplate at length, considering the alleged source was a **teenager** ) but he may as well have. There was no mystery to him what the motivations were and as much as he would have liked to string the antichrist up by his intestines for it, he couldn't blame him. Crowley had an easy time understanding that part. The part that he could not come to terms with, the part that felt like a knife to the heart, was finally having his eyes completely opened. There was no more denial to hide beneath.

Below the first line, he began to write another and then another, until the ink flowed and his eyes stung.

' _I'm not good with words. You were always better at them. I'll try anyway. Where do I begin? You will never read this so I suppose that doesn't matter, does it?_

_We have established in my other rubbish note that I am no good for you, angel. I'm a bastard and not even the enjoyable sort that is worth knowing. Maybe I was once a long time ago. You are trying to show me and tell me that, or you were before the kid got ahold of you and made you forget. Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that you are better off not knowing me. You are better off forgetting anyone that let you carry guilt when you never did anything wrong, or made you out to be less than what you are. You're good. Better than good. I never told you and I should have like so many other things. I wish I could make you remember long enough for you to hear that with your own ears, and to hear me tell you how sorry I am. Better that you don't. If you did, I'd not let you forget again. I'm selfish on top of a bastard, you see._

_Don't think that this means you've gotten rid of me, though. I'm going to stay close, but out of your sight and mind, to look after you. Maybe I'll get it right this time._

_Yours, Crowley_ '

Crowley laid the pen down and shut the book. No satisfaction came from writing, though he did not expect any when he had left out the most important part. The letter was not one that anyone would read and really only served the purpose of acting as a reminder to the demon, anyway. If there ever came a time in the future that he meandered off the course and restrictions he was setting for himself, he would find the page and read each word slowly until they were burned into his mind's eye.

Heavy drapes were miracled over the windows before he turned the switch on the desk lamp. He crawled beneath the awful, lacy blanket then laid his head on the equally ugly pillows with the book cradled to his chest. Only then, with the absence of light and purpose to keep him efficient did he allow himself to truly _feel_ which was a terrible idea, all things considered. A physical pain would have been preferable to the ache that was gutting him. There was no weight heavier, no hollow half as deep. He could feel it squeezing the air out of him and swelling in his throat and behind his eyes. It was simultaneously fed and soothed by the scent and cool surface of the book in his arms, because the book was as good as its emblem.

What he did not address in his letter and what he could see with utter clarity was the underlying meaning behind everything Aziraphale had sent to him. The letters and the items were not merely reminders of better times, but tokens of love that had endured in spite of constant discouragement. Aziraphale _loved_ him and had for so long.

Wedged there in between the angel's tokens in the form of drawings and hasty, uncertain and awkward writing was that Crowley loved him, too.


	9. Warmth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And so begins an unsteady dance.

Crowley slept longer than he intended. His dreams had embraced him and took him along a winding path full of moments he often forgot in his waking hours. He dreamt of powders in brilliant colour splashing against his skin from the hands of revelers as he desperately chased a pale figure between their dancing bodies. Through streets they went that resembled those of one era in one end of the world and gradually changed into those of another. The current of dreams pulled him along, past the pyramids of Egypt and through Rome's colosseum, then farther yet to an ancient circle of stones where he and the angel watched the sky. If there were ever words spoken, he forgot about them as quickly as blinking and knew only the emotion those words were meant to convey. They were a plea for pause, to be given a chance to catch up, to _learn_. No matter the way the scenes changed, shifting as quickly as the desert sands, the oppressive shadow of Eden's wall constantly stretched over him. He could never escape it and did not know whether he longed for the old garden or was repelled. Was it possible to feel both?

When he finally awakened to the sound of rainfall a week later, it was into a state of half-existing. This was not so uncommon among the supernatural forces, truth be told. Demons and angels had an easier time whispering suggestion into the ears of humans in this 'inbetween' and did not risk the entanglements that both sides were against for differing reasons. (Entanglements that more than a handful of books and films were focused upon, in fact, meaning several 'someones' broke the rules.) Humans looked through them or, at times, glimpsed their figures from the corner of their eyes. Sometimes they felt even their presence in the way the hair on the backs of their necks could stand on end along with the uncanny impression of being watched. Mostly, they ambled through life without noticing anything at all. Crowley had always preferred to be there, tangible and in their direct sight, however. He made sure they noticed him and interacted because, as much as he insinuated otherwise, he was a social creature that craved the stimulation not found among other demons. Aziraphale, he supposed, was the same though discussions regarding the other angels were limited. The angel had a way of deflecting when the subject came up and Crowley was only noticing it now.

After he reread his latest entry, he wondered if that should be an aspect of himself that he ought to put behind him. If the humans did not interact with him, Aziraphale was not as likely to spot him. He would also be less inclined to tempt the humans into sin or bother them in general - something the angel would appreciate, he thought. What good had Crowley done the humans, anyway? If there were any shining examples, he had forgotten them.

So, much in the same way Aziraphale had 'vanished' from the world, Crowley disappeared from the awareness of others.

Time passed. Crowley lost track of how much and it lost track of him, in turn. His appearance changed little, yet there were frayed edges in the unbutton cuffs of his shirt and in the very essence of him until the black faded into grey. Days rolled into weeks and winter's grip persisted while the demon ignored all of it in favor of observing. 

Aziraphale led what appeared to be a peaceful, if routine life. Crowley did not have knowledge of exactly how long the angel (or whatever he was now) had lived beneath Madam Tracy's and Adam Young's roof but there was a sense of the long term the be gleaned in Aziraphale's patterns and interactions with his surroundings. He had a stall on the pier that he patronized the same three days in a week to obtain their blintzes and rogelach, and along the way there were people that greeted him with polite nods or the occasional good word. The elderly woman and her granddaughters that operated the stall for over a decade were always happy to chat with him at length. Then, when the days were pleasant and clear (a suspiciously common occurrence in Tadfield) he took walks along the beach where the cold wind painted his pale cheeks and nose pink. One could easily assume that all was well for the man-shaped being. He appeared to be content with family (the antichrist called him _uncle_ ) and community _and yet_...

Crowley had come to terms with knowing he willfully ignored and outright scorned much where Aziraphale was concerned but he did _know_ him, and had known him for too long not to feel that something was amiss. He caught it in the way the angel's dreamlike, absent demeanor would shift and his pale eyes darkened with something akin to melancholy when he thought no one was paying attention.

Books began to appear in Aziraphale's path after this not-quite fully realized discovery was made. Crowley left them in locations he knew the angel was bound to go and kept them safe until they were discovered. The little gifts inspired as much delight as they did confusion because who left first editions on sea-side benches for the elements to ravage? Eventually, the books were joined by money which the angel was quick to reject. He anxiously made inquiries over lost money which some people falsely claimed ownership for. The unintentional temptation and manufacturing of sin exasperated Crowley as much as Aziraphale's stubborn determination to donate all of it when he did not find the 'proper' owners. 

Crowley gave up on the money bit rather quickly after that. 

There were other gifts, tangible and not. Karma had a way of instantly finding the individuals that were ever unkind to the angel (hypocritical, perhaps, but Crowley was not aiming for sainthood by any stretch of the imagination and honestly half of them were right tossers so he didn't feel a pinch of guilt) but this alarmed Aziraphale. He picked up on the pattern quickly and was visibly stressed until Crowley relented. He should have known, he grudgingly admitted in the pages of the book where he kept other notes. Aziraphale did not like to see anyone in distress or harmed, no matter the circumstances. 

Demonic retribution had not done the trick, nor did rare books and a boxes of rogelach anonymously sent aid in driving away the dark shadow he continued to spot in Aziraphale's eyes. 

_'What am I doing wrong?'_ Crowley wrote to himself. There was no one else to ask and even if there was, he was not sure how he could begin to explain. He followed the logical (not at all logical) course of action when one hits a wall: Drinking. Doing so was a form of running away that was temporary. He wasn't breaking his promise doing that, he felt.

The book joined him on a bench facing the beach at sunset. There, he started on the first of many bottles for the evening while he tumbled through his uncertainties and innumerable questions. What did this new Aziraphale _need_? Why did he carry sadness with him even without remembering all of the bad things? Why did seeing it there day after day fill Crowley with a gnawing sense of dread? He was sure that it was his fault somehow but, for once, he genuinely had no idea what he had done this time.

"Must be the humans I cursed," he mused. The wringing hands and nervous eyes came to mind and he sighed, rolling his head back to stare at the vibrant twilight sky. "Nah...was doing that before."

At some point, the sun had fully set and the stars glittered in an inky darkness offset only by a waxing crescent moon. A couple more bottles of wine had joined Crowley since then. The heat of the wine filling him made the frigid wind feel like the knives across his skin. He was no closer to enlightenment but he felt significantly fuzzier in the head which was a small mercy. 

"Oh! Oh...it's you."

If Crowley had been drinking at the same time the voice graced his ears, he would surely have choked. Goosebumps raised all over his body, from toes to scalp, as he flinched. No one was supposed to be able to _see_ him, meaning this was a demon, one of those psychic humans or an...

An angel.

He already was clutching the book to his chest with one hand as the other hand strangled the neck of a bottle. His eyes, wide behind his dark lenses, took in the sight of Aziraphale. The angel was bundled up for the cold weather with a clear umbrella hanging off of his arm. His expression was difficult to read with a not-frown hanging on his lips and a slight furrow to his brows. 

"You can see me," Crowley pointed out. After his initial flailing, he did aim to sit unnaturally still in hopes that he would vanish. There was no such luck so he hastily shoved the book out of sight beneath one of his thighs.

"Ah. Yes. So I can," Aziraphale replied. He eyed the bottles of wine at Crowley's feet and obvious conclusions were being drawn. He was not wrong in assuming the comment was drunkenly made. 

"How did you...You snuck up on me. Need to attach some bleeding bells t'you," Crowley blurted out, further embarrassing himself. The statement had a positive effect, however. Aziraphale laughed softly and gestured to the bench.

"May I?"

Crowley considered the option of allowing Aziraphale to sit with him on the bench. He could give him some of the wine that was left in the current bottle, or he could- He didn't know, actually, and the more he thought about it the more the idea sounded bad. "Best not."

That should have been the end of the interaction, or so Crowley believed. He expected Aziraphale to be put out by the refusal, but then he could go back home and forget again. The disappointment would be only temporary and the barb a brief sting. What he did not take into account was Aziraphale's stubborn streak. The angel pursed his lips then eased them into another one of his easy smiles.

"I believe we got off to a bad start," he said. "And you haven't got a coat. You must be freezing. Here, wear mine."

Before Crowley could stop him, Aziraphale was taking his thick coat off to hold out to him. The demon swallowed. He wanted to do what was right, or at least what was right by Azirapahle. At that moment, he had no idea what the appropriate choice was. "There are only bad starts with me." The warning sounded weak even in his ears and Aziraphale answered to it with a mild frown. "And erm...stays bad."

"Allow _me_ to be the judge of that," Aziraphale said with an indignant sniff. "Now, I must insist."

The heat from the coat seeped into Crowley's body the moment the heavy garment was draped over his shoulders. More came to him from Aziraphale as he took the open space on the bench beside him. He hadn't fully realized how cold he was until then and he barely had the restraint to keep from leaning in.

Neither spoke a word for a moment after they made themselves comfortable. Crowley was half sprawled, his wine-soaked limbs unable to maintain a correct posture and his general uncertainty with the situation making him a bit weak around the middle. Aziraphale sat primly, his hands folded neatly on top of his lap as he watched the white-capped waves rolling in to the shore.

"Wine?" Crowley eventually offered. The bottle was held out and Aziraphale, after a moment's hesitation, reached out to accept it. 

The next bout of silence to follow should have been awkward. Their last encounter had gone poorly and when Crowley thought on it from Aziraphale's perspective, he was certain that he came off as a barking lunatic. Somehow, despite everything, the emptiness managed to be companionable. Peaceful. They passed the bottle back and forth between them. Through Crowley's intervention, it never emptied.

"What are you doing out here all alone?" Aziraphale asked after he had consumed enough wine to fill him with a pleasant and heady warmth. It filled his cheeks with colour and made his eyes shine with a tipsy glaze. 

Crowley side-eyed him. "Could ask you the same," he drawled.

They studied each other in another space of quiet that only the waves interrupted. Aziraphale's smile was light and slow to form, yet crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Well, we are not alone now, are we?" he questioned.

He was absolutely mad, Crowley thought. Even so, a smirk tugged at his lips without fully forming. "I guess not."

Whether or not this was a good idea, he still did not know. For now, Crowley would leave all of the worrying for later and enjoy the moment for however long it lasted.


	10. Reprise: Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will you be there still when the liminal space fades away?

The night on the bench lasted until dawn approached and there were several bottles of wine scattered between them. Conversation flowed easier with the drink. Crowley complained about Aziraphale's name and the angel scowled, insisting 'Arthur Young' was and had always been his name and why was Crowley adamant about calling him 'angel'? 

"Alright, alright, then- Then, if your name has always been _Arthur Young_ tell me. Tell me, erm. Where'd you get it?" he demanded while he leaned into Aziraphale's space. He had one hand on the back of the bench and the other one swinging the wine bottle around by the neck.

Aziraphale aimed a pitying gaze upon Crowley and he almost hissed, but he didn't because even drunk he knew how ridiculous he had just sounded. " _C'mon_ , angel. Humour me. What were your parents names, then?" 

He was answered to with an indignant sniff. "I'm an orphan."

There were holes in the story that Aziraphale refused to see and Crowley doubted the wine was to blame. It was during their third shared bottle of wine that Aziraphale explained part of his 'history' to Crowley. Some details were the same, many others others were not. For instance, Aziraphale claimed to have recently retired from years of work at the museum. Before that, he said that he was an archaeologist which was not precisely true but also not entirely _false_ from what Crowley could tell. Aziraphale _did_ go around the world to dig up artifacts for their personal history not so long ago. He would give 'Arthur' that one. The rest made his teeth ache for how hard he grit them.

"I had an...an accident, Adam told me. Can't quite remember it, but my memory is all a mess, I'm afraid," Aziraphale carried on with a sigh. "That's why I'm to live with him and my sister, Tracy. They've...what's the saying? Filled me in."

"The sister you share no proper name with, nor parents?" Crowley had asked acidly. "And where's Adam's mum and father? Is he an orphan, too?" Aziraphale had no answers, only a sullen frown before he reclaimed the bottle of red from Crowley's hand. 

"Adam's considering...He is going to write. Fiction. That's what he says. Comic books," Aziraphale slurred, changing the subject. The chance that he did not want to look too closely at the discrepancies occurred to Crowley, and it poked a hole into the inebriated bubble surrounding him. "He's a bright young man, our Adam."

Crowley scowled, remembering his bitterness, remembering that he had told himself he would _not_ make Aziraphale remember anything no matter how much he wanted to in this moment. Those promises were harder to keep when the angel was there in reach, aware of him and interacting. " _Is_ he really? A _writer_? How bloody convenient." He could scream. If this was Adam's doing, this shoddy story, then Crowley had a thing or two to tell him about plot holes and cliche. That would be before or after he strangled the brat. During was an option, too.

"Convenient?" Aziraphale blinked at him and Crowley waved his hand to wave away the question and the whole subject. 

They spoke of other things afterward, subjects that had no substance or meaning but were comfortable. The edges in Crowley's tone wore away and Aziraphale was laughing with warmth in his eyes. 

Crowley resumed his self-imposed exile in the edges of awareness after he walked the angel home. He had allowed himself that one selfish evening with a version of Aziraphale, but once he sobered himself up he knew he had to return to the 'straight and narrow' in a manner of speaking. One night would not be enough to disrupt too much in Aziraphale's new life, he thought, and eventually the angel would forget all about him. 

He was wrong, of course. He could not fathom how wrong he was.

Aziraphale's routine had changed after that night. 

Instead of walking to his bookstores or off to the pier to meet with the ladies that sold the pastries he liked best, he returned to the bench every day. The first time he did not linger, but walked by after a searching gaze. The next, he brought a book with him and sat down to read. Again and again he repeated the pattern of sitting on the bench when the weather permitted, and then returning home. Crowley observed him and ignored the static hiss of anxiety starting in his ears. _'Why?'_ , he asked silently. _'Why are you doing this?'_

Crowley's resolve was shattered a couple of weeks later. He watched Aziraphale sit on the bench, empty handed, and search in every direction. The sounds of footsteps would bring a glint of hope to his eyes and when he did not see what he was looking for, the dejected shadow was unbearable. He assumed he was an expert on every kind of pain the universe had to offer. He was wrong about that, too, like so much else as he was discovering lately. There was a special kind of agony a person can experience. It was the blunt and persistent press of a mountain upon the chest, the razor sharp teeth sinking into the heart and soul. It was the act of witnessing a loved one in pain.

The next day, he was there upon the bench with the white coat neatly folded in his arms where Aziraphale could see. "Thought you would be needing this back," he explained, standing once he caught sight of Aziraphale. The man was staring at him the way one might towards a ghost. 

"O-oh...I thought...I did not expect I would see you again," Aziraphale admitted. His attempt towards a smile was brittle and did not conceal what Crowley interpreted to be...worry? Sadness, perhaps. _Uncertainty_.

"I had a thing," Crowley was quick to explain. "And...erm...I live in London. Lived. But your coat. I've brought it back."

Aziraphale glanced at it but he did not take the coat away. One manicured hand held the other in front of his belly. "That is. That is kind of you to return it. Lived, you say?" The note of hope in his tone was matched by the lift of his brows.

"Lived," Crowley confirmed. "I've plans to take residence here." He made them exactly a second before the words left his mouth.

The shift of emotion on Aziraphale's face was like finding the search beam of a lighthouse in a storm. His eyes lit up and his smile was a glowing thing that told Crowley everything he had resisted knowing. Even now, in spite of the obvious magic worked upon the angel to shift his reality and that of the world concerning him, Aziraphale was trying to reach out for Crowley and would not know peace until Crowley reached out in return. He could have blamed it on the responsible power being weak or not thorough enough but the idea was not one he could give life to. This was Aziraphale at his core and the strength of his steady and gentle heart. He loved and he did not give up, no matter how impossible the odds. He had done so in the event of Armageddon and for some reason Crowley could still not fathom, he had done so with the demon, himself.

Another wall crumbled inside of him. Crowley weakly offered the coat again and, this time, Aziraphale accepted it from him. "I'm so happy to hear it."

~*~

Crowley acquired a small cottage in Tadfield with Aziraphale's guidance. He did not need the help, but it pleased the angel to fuss over locations and explain to Crowley the merits of a view to the beach. So, after observing Aziraphale's reactions to each home, he chose the one that seemed to appeal the most. It was located in view of the beach, the pier, and also was in walking distance of many restaurants and little shops. Some months had flitted by and all he managed to do was fill it with a single writing desk with a matching chair (outrageously expensive antiques from the Qing dynasty), a bed, and the book. The remaining space was bare because he did not actually trust the cottage and most of his time was spent with Aziraphale.

He learned interesting things about Aziraphale in those months, some that were _very_ new. Crowley could not decide whether or not the reason was because he was actively paying more attention now or if Aziraphale being untethered from his museum and memories. He was, for example, a person that craved _touch_. There was rarely an occasion that he did not find a way to touch Crowley, whether it was a tap on the shoulder or a pat to the arm and hand. Sometimes, when he and Crowley had enough wine in them to kill a small elephant, he leaned on the demon and ranted about the state of the books in the second-hand stores or the people that rode their bikes and skateboards on the pavement. There was an impressive list of things Aziraphale had uncharitable opinions about, much to Crowley's delight. He never failed to encourage Aziraphale to complain more about them.

But _touching_...

The easy way Aziraphale could touch him without his old nervous hesitation reminded Crowley of the era before his first discorporating. He had, through repeated snapping and enough cold shouldering, taught the angel never to touch him after that event. There could be no more lazy sprawling together beneath rain-soaked leaves, nor the casual grip of hands when Aziraphale's nervously twisted. To reclaim that trust and intimacy would have led to death or betrayal, he was convinced...But the angel forgot all about those old rules set by Crowley. He was operating on a set of rules of his own making and Crowley was the one that had to adapt.

Aziraphale also had a love of experiences. He collected them. Crowley could think of no better way to describe it. He loved going to restaurants or little cafes but claimed to hate doing so alone. They were more fun to visit with another person, he insisted. There were little shops all over Tadfield filled with antiques and old books that he frequently lured Crowley to, no matter how rarely the inventory changed. Most of all, Aziraphale liked to sit and read his books with company, because he could pause to tell his company (only ever Crowley) about a passage he enjoyed or thought was ridiculous and then they could talk about it. Many an evening was spent on the bench or in a cafe for Aziraphale to read because Crowley refused to go into the house where Adam Young lived. Nearly anything that Aziraphale wanted or hinted to wanting was indulged in so long as his 'nephew' was not involved. 

(Avoiding Adam had become something of a _game_. So far, Crowley was winning though he did spot the young man off at a distance one day. Their eyes met and Adam had _smiled_. Crowley had yet to shake off just how much that unnerved him.)

Crowley and Aziraphale also took walks together when the weather was agreeable, which was something they both enjoyed.

It was on one such occasion that the angel, in a weary and heavy voice, quoted: All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream.

Crowley grimaced. "Urgh! Poe! What did I do to deserve Poe quoted at me?" 

They were on their way to the pier on a rainy August day with Aziraphale's clear umbrella opened above them. Crowley, being the tallest one, insisted on carrying it. He pointed out that the protection against the rain was better that way and Aziraphale never disagreed with him. 

"Poe is a classic!" Aziraphale said in return with a pout. 

"Poe's a gloomy bastard, angel. I don't know why you read him," Crowley replied. He had also, through his recent discoveries, learned that Aziraphale was drawn to the morbid and gloomy subjects in art and literature. This came as a surprise when he considered Aziraphale's warm and sweet nature.

" _You_ are dark and gloomy, my dear," Aziraphale pointed out and Crowley could not say anything against that. He frowned at Aziraphale, but the retort died on his tongue. Aziraphale was not looking at him, but towards the beach with a forlorn shadow that Crowley had not seen in a long time now. His shoulders were sagged and his fingers twiddling. 

"Alright, out with it," Crowley said after he stopped walking, which prompted Aziraphale to do the same. He would get wet, otherwise. 

"I'm not sure what you mean," was the murmured response to which Crowley rolled his eyes towards the heavens. 

"You've been quiet since we left mine, angel. Not the same quiet as usual. And you're _quoting_. You only quote when you've got something you want to say and you can't spit it out." Crowley imagined this poetic form of avoiding a direct discussion towards uncomfortable subjects had come from the Heian court. 

His observations had the effect of making Aziraphale blush and rub the bottom edge of his waistcoat. When Crowley did not relent, when he continued to loom over Aziraphale, the angel finally spoke.

"Well, I...I feel quite out of sorts if you must know," Aziraphale said without meeting Crowley's eyes. His eyes darted, fixing on the beach and then Crowley's polished shoes, the buttons on his black coat, his hand around the umbrella handle. "I feel as if nothing is what it should be. My dreams...I feel like I am properly myself when I am sleeping because my dreams are more like memories than the memories I have when I'm awake, apart from what I've made these last few months and you- You will find me silly, I know it, but I worry you will disappear. That- That you will _leave_." His hands were twisting harder and his voice had gone thick and heavy with anguish. "Your home is so empty, Crowley."

By the time he finished speaking, there were tears beading at the corners of his eyes and his face had gone pink with distress. The handle of the umbrella groaned beneath Crowley's grip.

"'M not going anywhere," he said with a softness in his voice he had not used in...He could not remember how long, especially towards Aziraphale. "I dunno what to fill it with, angel, that's all. You're better at that than I am."

Aziraphale's face lifted for Crowley to properly see him. The raindrops falling on the umbrella cast shadows that trailed down his cheeks, and the image was so painfully familiar that it stole the breath from his unnecessary lungs. He was transported back to a time long ago when he was the one in distress, ducked beneath the covering of Aziraphale's wing. That first rain ran in little streams down the angel's face.

 _'You are safe,'_ Aziraphale had told him back then.

Crowley reached out to trace his fingertips against the shadowy paths of the raindrops. Aziraphale sucked in a breath and stood still, because no matter how many times he had touched Crowley, the demon had yet to do any more than what was strictly necessary. He nearly withdrew his fingers from Aziraphale's cheek but the teary eyes held him in place. A moment passed before he cupped his palm against his face - a touch that caused Aziraphale's eyes to shut and his breath to hitch.

"You mean it?" he whispered. 

"I mean it, angel," Crowley promised. He rubbed a tear away with the pad of his thumb then pressed his lips against the angel's forehead. Aziraphale's gasp was barely audible, but he could feel it. "Not going anywhere without you." Not any more.

Crowley, after avoiding him for so long, finally knew he _had_ to speak to Adam Young.


	11. Adam

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We're mirrors reflecting each other's shadows and light.

Adam had grown into an attractive young man which was a surprise to no one. He was tall, with the lankiness of youth, and a head full of golden curls. Everyone that looked at him knew that he was going to be a breathtaking man within a few years, once he filled out and grew into his limbs a little better. He was more than pretty eyes and a contagious smile, though. Where others his age were still awkward and unsure of where their place was in the world, he carried himself with an easy confidence. He would be a leader some day. The manner in which all of his many friends were keen on following his every idea and whim was early evidence towards the potential.

All that Crowley could see when the door to the Young household opened was the eleven-year-old boy, the antichrist. A _child_ with the terrifying power.

"Took you long enough," Adam said. He was grinning at Crowley, blue eyes shining with mild amusement. The terms they had left off on were not bad, but Crowley had not known what to expect. He was always the one to paint the darkest pictures across his mind's eye. Now that he was here, standing on the boy's doorstep, smiled at, he could not remember exactly why he assumed he would not be welcomed. Perhaps it was their excursion into London years ago, when Crowley was doing and saying everything to save his own skin, that made him feel he _deserved_ a cold reception. 

"An amnesia plot, Adam?" he drawled as a way of greeting. Adam shrugged. 

"Wasn't my idea," he admitted. "Come in. I've been waiting for you."

Those were ominous words that provoked the fight or flight response in Crowley. He stepped across the threshold in spite of them and followed Adam up the stairs to what Crowley assumed was his bedroom. 

The walls were completely overtaken by posters and comic books that were still in their plastic covers. Framed and autographed drawings from a variety of comic book artists were among the decorations but they were not what caught Crowley's eye. He nearly choked upon seeing one of his own drawings in a frame. 

"Where the-"

"Internet," Adam answered, having watched Crowley's slow scan of his room. He had laughter in his voice that would have been irritating if Crowley was not so alarmed. "Everyone's mad about who the artist is. There's a whole community questioning the source. I knew you were the one, though, since Aziraphale's in it."

Indeed, Aziraphale was. The picture was one of the many that Crowley had made on his bender shortly after realizing the angel was missing. Aziraphale in the picture was sketched as he had appeared shortly after they had left Eden. One of his wings was lifted at an angle to block the sun from his face and the shading gave the impression of sunlight breaking through the plumes. His hair was long, then, a tumbling cloud of unruly white curls caught in the wind.

The pang in Crowley's heart was second only to the mortification of knowing that this image and possibly many others he had made were on the heaven-blessed internet. That had to have happened when he made the poor choice of spamming emails of the sketches to Anathema. He wondered if he was more powerful than the internet, if he could systematically remove each and every picture from every computer in existence. (He would later learn that he was not, though he did certainly try.)

"You're wondering about Aziraphale, right?" Adam prompted. He was sitting down at the rolling chair in front of his desk which was littered with model kits, crumpled papers, textbooks and supplies for drawing. A few comic action figures were scattered among them.

Days had passed after he stood with Aziraphale in the rain, listening to the angel confess the depths of his upset. Those days were filled with slowly unraveling the truth that Aziraphale believed he was going mad because he thought the world around him might not be real, or that there was something fundamentally wrong with him as a being. Crowley had kept him in his own cottage under the pretense of needing Aziraphale's help with decorating and filling the place up. The way Aziraphale had cried when he told him that the only time he did not want to sleep and live in his dreams was when he was with Crowley had done something to the demon. He didn't have the words for it, only knew that he had to _act_ and that the action took the shape of cradling the angel to him until the crying ceased. Aziraphale was terrified that Crowley would leave and the demon had given him every reason to believe that was true before the angel's memories were distorted. He made himself tangible and consistent.

Now, he needed Adam to undo whatever it was he had done for Aziraphale's sake or at the very least find out why any of it was necessary. 

"What did you do?" Crowley asked, unable to prevent the ire he felt. So much of this was his fault, but it was Adam's, too. Had to be.

He turned away from the wall of art to scowl at the boy and found himself pinned, instead, by Adam's gaze. It was as if the boy could see directly into him, into his heart and the essence that made him what he was. Crowley stepped back but there was no physical way of escaping, not really. The damage was done. He was _seen_ and he hated nothing more.

"Wrong question," Adam said. 

They were silent, the both of them. Crowley was growing accustomed to these awkward silences that would happen in his conversations with people. He once had a bravado that carried him through any social interactions, a false confidence and charm. Just like the nightclub, that persona no longer fit him. He couldn't quite wiggle his way into the skin once it was shed, even if he tried. So, the silence was there and the two stared at one another until Crowley rethought the way he was going to address the subject.

"Why?" he asked, not with anger, but hard and frustrated desperation. 

Adam sighed as he slouched, his arms draping on the armrests of his chair and his legs stretching. Crowley, after receiving a gesture to sit, lowered onto the edge of Adam's bed. "He needed help," he explained. "He said that angels wanted to take him back to Heaven and make him stay there forever and he didn't know who else he could turn to that had power to do anything about it." The boy frowned. "He was scared."

This was not what Crowley expected. Of all the motivating factors - himself as a forerunner - he had not anticipated Aziraphale's _aversion_ towards returning to Heaven as the kickstarter to his disappearance. Crowley hadn't even known that Aziraphale feared Heaven or the other angels, not with the way the angel spouted off the regular pious phrase and praised Heaven in a glowing manner. A little over a year ago, he would not have believed Aziraphale, or he might have seen it as an opportunity to taunt the angel. Thinking of himself all of that time ago with this situation spread out in front of him made him feel ill. Demons could not _become_ ill, but he might be the first to accomplish the feat. 

If he had been a different person before the angels came for Aziraphale, would he have been able to help him? Could he have been relied upon at all? These were questions asked far too late, of course. He wasn't when he was needed, and he nearly lost Aziraphale forever because of it.

"I don't think it's fair, forcing someone to leave home or do things they don't want to because of what they are or where they're from, so I made changes for him," Adam continued when the pause lingered for too long. "The amnesia was his idea. He didn't think the changes would take if he still could remember he was an angel, because he would forget not to use miracles the way he's used to doing. Said that other angels might still find him anyway but if he couldn't remember them, they would leave him alone. I wouldn't do that part, though. Isn't right, messing about with other people's heads."

Crowley did not question the grim tone of Adam's voice for his last comment. Both were remembering what had happened when the world almost ended, and the way Satan had turned all of Tadfield's citizens into deliriously happy puppets. They were given no choice but to cheer for and welcome a king that would ruin them and the world.

"How long will it last?" Crowley asked. "The whole...All of it. You can do that? The whole world doesn't remember he ever _was_. There's no trace - I looked! Is he even an angel?" 

To this, Adam smiled apologetically and, with a shrug, he answered. "He's an angel. I couldn't change that part. I only made him invisible and he did all the rest. What lasts is up to him, innit?"

He made it all sound so simple, as if he did not alter a significant part of reality. Crowley wondered how much Adam was capable of and felt genuine relief knowing that, against the odds his heritage provided, the boy had grown into a level-headed person full of...Of _humanity_. 

When Crowley left Adam's home and climbed into the Bentley, he had not yet fully processed what the conversation revealed and decided to take a long drive. His own preconceived notions, though shattered with the truth, remained a shadow across his mind. What the truth revealed, in turn, opened doors new realms of awareness regarding Aziraphale and himself. So much of what he thought he knew and understood about the angel was wrong. So much of what he thought he knew about himself was, too. By the time he returned to his cottage, the sky was dark and light glowed through the windows. 

Aziraphale was not aware of him when he first walked in. Crowley watched him in the sitting room as he rearranged the books on the bookcase (an antique, of course) and mutter to himself over the condition of certain volumes. He was wearing a pale blue jumper instead of white and tan trousers, which was more colour than he had ever worn and made him appear more grounded to the earth that he so deeply loved. How long ago had he chosen this world over Heaven? How long ago had he chosen to consider his proper place to be alongside a demon instead of angels? He sacrificed an enormous part of himself in order to keep what he loved.

How long ago had Aziraphale shaken off the concept of his origins being his identity?

For how much longer would Crowley cling to Hell as his?

"Angel," he said, startling Aziraphale out of his task. He regarded Crowley with wide eyes then smiled a second later.

" _There_ you are! I was beginning to worry," he said with an anxious bounce in his words. He abandoned the effort to organize the books. "I was thinking Indian for supper tonight. What do you say? But oh-" He held the fingers of one hand in the palm of the other. "You will be wanting your space back. I really have overstayed and-"

Crowley cut him off by taking hold of his shoulders. He had reached a decision about Aziraphale during his drive. Of course, he would need the angel to agree but he was certain he would not have to try too hard. Aziraphale may not have explicitly said as much, but he felt secure with Crowley. The demon would see to it that the angel continued to feel safe for however long his mind was altered, even if that meant for eternity. More than ensuring the angel's comfort, he would continue to shield him from Heaven the way Aziraphale needed. "Do you want to stay?" he asked. "Stay with me. Here."

A myriad of emotions flickered visibly across Aziraphale's face. Shock melted into worry, which made the quick and easy jump to confusion, landed on thoughtful, then circled 'round again to uncertainty. His lips parted and his head tilted. "My dear boy," he said. "Surely you must need time to yourself. I hate to impose and-"

Again, Crowley cut him off. "I'm asking you to _stay_ , angel," he said impatiently. "Stay for good. Take all your things from Adam's and stay here."

"Well, I..." Aziraphale looked around them. The cottage was still rather sparse. Against a wall was the thick sofa they had argued over for half an hour because Crowley wanted style over comfort and Aziraphale refused to accept anything that he could not comfortably sit on while reading. An ornate carpet from India was spread on the floor in front of it which did not match but both found appealing to look at. Then, of course, there were the bookcases that Aziraphale stared at with open longing until Crowley purchased them to the sounds of the angel's half-hearted refusal. 

"Please," Crowley said. "Don't worry about Adam or his mum. They'll be close. You're not going far. 'Sides, the place could use more filling, yeah? You've got...stuff. All of your things." Clutter. There was going to be so much clutter and Crowley was going to despise it, but he would learn to accept the presence of unnecessary objects. 

Aziraphale's eyes were finally set directly upon him. Worry lingered in them a moment longer, but whatever he saw in Crowley's face seemed to calm him. His smile was shy and his eyes warm.

~*~

Time was an unstoppable force. No matter what happened, it continued its march onward. If one did not pay close enough attention and measure its seconds, it would slip by in an eye's blink. This held true for everyone, no matter who or what they were.

In the case of Crowley and Aziraphale, Time barely spared a nod to them before it sped by in years - five, to be exact. 

The cottage had become a proper home, by then. Each room was filled and bore evidence that they were lived in and frequently used. Despite Crowley's best efforts, there was plenty of clutter but he had developed a kind of irritated fondness towards the sight of it all, if only because the minor chaos was all Aziraphale. Art and photographs hung on the walls and the chairs surrounding the dining table were put to actual use when Adam and Tracy paid a visit to them. Sometimes, Adam brought his noisy friends, driving Crowley into hiding out in his study which he used to brood or work on his paintings or sketches. 

There was warmth, and there was peace. Aziraphale, though he had settled into himself, had yet to remember anything.

He had his dreams which Crowley discovered over time to be nothing more than a replay of history. Aziraphale described moments through time that they had experienced together, and plenty more that the angel must have gone through alone. It was in this way he gained a deeper understanding on the angel's association with Heaven. 

"The thing was," Aziraphale explained to him late one evening after he had awakened from a 'nightmare'. His voice was a timid whisper across the pillow they shared. "I was... _alone_. So alone. I was there, I was one of them but I did not belong. They looked at me and I could feel the judgement in their eyes that they knew I was not like them. I was meant to be and- and I had fallen short. No matter how I tried, I could not quite manage to be what I was meant."

Crowley spoke with a razor-edged tongue, and half of his words ending in a hiss. "Sounds like a flock of bloody wankers. S'Good thing you don't match up with 'em!"

Aziraphale would always respond with a huff or some gentle chiding against Crowley's language or harsh opinion towards his 'dream people', but the appreciative smile tucked in the corners of his lips was nevertheless present.

Though he had gotten used to Aziraphale as 'Arthur' and all that entailed, the reality would hit Crowley at times and leave him breathless with an emotion he would not give a name to, lest he give it power. (Power it already had.) He watched Aziraphale when those moods struck him and wondered if he would ever see his angel again in his entirety. New memories were made - good ones - but there were thousands of years between them that Aziraphale no longer knew, nor could draw as a point of reference when Crowley behaved in ways that confused or alarmed him. The effort to behave more like a human at all times was taxing, to say the least.

' _I am living with your ghost, angel._ ' Crowley once wrote. He still kept the book. It was more of a diary for him now, and he kept it hidden. ' _You're here and I see you every day. Most of what made you 'you' is still the same. You have the most annoying habit of making cocoa and forgetting about it, then you make another bloody cup and forget that one, too. Cups everywhere, Aziraphale. You never listen to me when I remind you, either. Always stuck in the books, you are, reading the works of gloomy poets or playwrights. You're you but without the parts that made you mine._

_I catch you looking at me sometimes. You look at something you've collected, or the things I leave out hoping you'll recognize what it is and where it came from and I think you might be on the verge of remembering. The moment passes and you're still Arthur._

_Maybe I'm the one that's the ghost. I'm haunting you and you are haunting me._ '

Hindsight was a constant companion to Crowley. By now, he should have realized that he had the knack for missing what was obvious and directly beneath his nose, so he should not have been surprised when the key was finally discovered. Some lessons take longer to sink in than others, however.

It had been with him from the start.


	12. The Worry Stone

Tadfield was experiencing a particularly rainy August. The noon sky was dim with heavy cloud cover and the rain poured so hard that one would be hard pressed in differentiating the sky from the sea. Of course, no one was out walking along the beach or the pier to make this observation. Most took shelter inside the dry comforts of their homes or were rushing to and from their vehicles to avoid a thorough soaking. Crowley and Aziraphale were no different. 

Crowley stared at the screen of his phone as he sat with Aziraphale on their sofa. Aziraphale was, as was so often the case, tucked against his side and beneath his arm with a book in his hands. The book today was poetry by Emily Dickinson - an old thing with a cover gone soft from age and pages that were so delicate that only Aziraphale's gentle touch could be trusted with them. On Crowley's screen, he followed the latest gossip about the painting he had put out into the world. After he lost his war against the internet where his sketches of Aziraphale were concerned, he decided to use it for his own entertainment. There was no need to do anything for Hell, so he did not go out with the intentions of stirring up sin. This was merely unleashing mysteries out into the world and watching everyone wind themselves up over attempting to solve them or find *any* explanation at all. He was compared to several artists through history and when he was in a mood, he emulated some of the classics. No one was certain if he was a modern artist or someone from the past because Crowley used miracles to make all methods of determining age on his pieces inconclusive. It was all very frustrating for the humans, yet they were excited at the same time. Their debates and arguments were amusing to watch and he would frequently step in on different names to misdirect or drop accurate hints to further confuse them. 

He was grinning at the argument playing out on his screen in the chat server he had joined that was dedicated to the latest mystery. Beside him, Aziraphale sighed.

"Rain always makes me feel so...so nostalgic," Aziraphale said. Crowley looked down to find that the angel's hands were still, holding the book open but turning no pages. His eyes were fixed upon the opened window where the raindrops continuously tapped.

"We're living in the wrong part of the world if rain puts you in a fit of melancholia, angel," he replied. It was a simple enough statement, one that was made without a thought, but also one that would never have happened several years ago. Love had a way of changing a person's language. 'We' and 'ours' replaced 'me' and 'mine'. 'You' and 'yours' lost its excluding tone and became one of searching or of giving. Instead of telling the angel that he lived in the wrong place, the both of them together could possibly go somewhere else - but only if Aziraphale liked.

"I suppose you're right...Oh- What's this?" Aziraphale forgot his book completely to look into the hand nearest to his shoulder. The calm mood of the afternoon turned over on its head in an instant. Crowley was the one to sit too still while he closed his fingers tight around the white checker marble. He had forgotten that he held it in the first place because the game piece had become a familiar weight in his palm. So often did he rub the cool surface between his fingertips that he now knew every chip and every remnant of an engraving by heart. If he shut his eyes, he could have rendered the imperfect image upon canvas without a flaw.

"It's erm..." He trailed off, unsure of what name to give to it. How could he tell Aziraphale that he had become attached to a piece from a game? Nevermind the reason, because that would make even less sense.

He had gotten the idea from Aziraphale, in fact. Because the angel knew nothing - no one did - Crowley only had the book to turn to in the procession of years. The words written by the angel before he retreated into himself to avoid extradition gave Crowley a sense of solace. These were spoken directly to him, for him. He looked at the relics, touched some of them, and let himself remember. He wouldn't mourn. Mourning would mean he gave up on the hope that Aziraphale would remember some day, so he was...slavering aloe on a burn that stubbornly refused to heal. The jade piece was the one he came back to and he imagined the way Aziraphale must have rubbed on the thing and for how long to make the engravings fade.

"Gives my hands something to do," he said and the half-lie made him wince. He did not lie to his angel any more, not so blatantly. There were, of course, the natural truths he could not share due to Aziraphale's state of mind. To pull back the veil could destroy his sense of reality, shake his very foundation and do harm beyond repair. The possibility was enough to frighten Crowley into keeping his lips tight on those subjects. If he attempted to prod at the possibility, he exercised subtlety which was never his forte. Aziraphale did not notice, however. He was gently uncurling Crowley's fingers so that he could have a better look. 

He anxiously awaited a response, any response, and stared down at Aziraphale. There upon those fair features was a budding look of confusion. Pale brows knitted and his lips pursed, which told Crowley that Aziraphale was working out a complicated problem in that ever-active mind of his.

"Where did you find this?" Aziraphale asked, sounding distracted as he continued to examine the pale surface. He was holding the piece in his palm and Crowley's hand felt colder. His fingertips prickled with the urge to pluck the marble from the angel's grasp and suggest that he forget all about it. There was that stubborn coal of hope that continued to burn in him, however, that flared to life. It crackled and burned with the possibility. 

Would he...?

Did he recognize it...?

"Found it at the museum once. Years ago," Crowley said in an attempted tone of neutrality. 

The smile and shine to Aziraphale's eyes was unexpected. Before he could ask what that look meant, the angel was on his feet. He stared at the checker, awestruck, then passed it over to Crowley "Could it possibly be? My Lord, Crowley! I have been missing a piece exactly like this one! Oh- Oh, I must look now."

Crowley had no other choice but to rise from their hideous (in his opinion, anyway) sofa to follow the angel through their home. More photographs hung on the walls. There were pictures of Adam and his friends along with framed post cards the antichrist sent while he traveled the world. Some were of Aziraphale and Crowley together, and even one of Madam Tracy had a place. She was an old woman now, surrounded by the ragtag bunch of people Adam called his family which were hers as well by extension. In her photograph, she radiated warmth.

All of these faces seemed to watch as Aziraphale rummaged in the hallway closet through boxes of stored away decorations and the random odds and ends that existed in all homes despite no one having a memory of ever collecting them in the first place. 

"Where did I- Ah, here it is," Aziraphale said when he spotted the antique box engraved with a celestial chart upon its lid. Crowley's heart lurched in his chest. He was transported to the early 1800s when he and Aziraphale had first commissioned the game to be made. Their chess set was lost at sea and they agreed that they needed a new game as well as a new board to play upon. A man in Italy had crafted this one and his initials were still deeply engraved upon the bottom. 

Aziraphale was smiling, delighted, as rubbed his fingertips over the sun.

"I lost a piece when I moved in with Adam and Tracy," Aziraphale explained. In his excitement, he failed to notice the demon's silence. He bustled into the study that they shared to begin unpacking the board. "I thought I would never find it and- Well. I couldn't bear to look at it incomplete. I did try to find a replacement but it wasn't the same."

From two compartments on either side of the board came a velvet pouch - one black and one white. Within, the opposite colour of checkers filled the bags. Aziraphale poured them out into his hands then held them up for Crowley to see. "I had them appraised - Second opinion, you know. Can you believe it, that they are hundreds of years old? I thought that I was correct and of course the gentleman wanted to take it off my hands but of _course_ I was not going to hand it over for any cost."

Crowley must have made the correct responses. He did not know. He did not feel as if he was within his own body. Aziraphale, however, appeared to be satisfied because he was all smiles as he filled the board.

The click of each piece laid down upon the squares produced a new memory like that of a slide show. There was Aziraphale in Eden. There was the great desert that scorched them and left them always smelling of hot feathers. Aziraphale in China, accepting a piece of jade after losing another game. Crowley in France, watching in horror as his angel was discorporated and the violence that followed as he lashed out against the humans responsible. Aziraphale in Rome with oysters. The two of them together watching the first plane fly. There was the day Aziraphale joined the museum, and the night that Crowley established the nightclub. Millennia passed before his eyes, so much that was heartbreaking and so much that was beautiful too, and finally, Aziraphale extended his hand for the piece that Crowley held. It was the piece he had found in the museum, the one tiny clue that Aziraphale was still in the world aside from what lie in his own memories. He passed it over and placed the piece in Aziraphale's hand, giving it the same fragile hope he had to Anathema years ago.

The final piece was set upon the remaining black square on the side of the white set. 

Around them, the world was moving the way it would always. The rain disrupted what would have been absolute silence otherwise. Aziraphale admired the completed board and Crowley gazed at his angel with his heart in his throat and his breath frozen in his chest. 

The change was not immediate, but there was a change nevertheless. He watched it unfold, starting with a slight furrow to Aziraphale's brows. Crowley saw it in the way his eyes darkened from bright blue to a darker, stormier greyish hue. He could feel it while Aziraphale stopped smiling, only to instantly curve his lips again, only this time the smile was forced. Aziraphale swallowed many times, hard, and then blinked quick a time or two.

He covered his mouth with the palm of his hand, eyes locked on the board. He breathed in deep. He exhaled in a shudder and Crowley felt as if he, himself, would soon shatter.

"O-oh..." Aziraphale breathed out. His gaze flicked up to Crowley, down to the board, and up again. The demon was frozen and numb. His limbs felt like lead and his skin too tight for his body. He wanted to run away but he was rooted to the spot with Aziraphale's eyes upon him. " _Oh._... There... _there_ you are," he said as a trembling finger gently tapped the formerly missing piece a few times. His laugh was breathy and nervous and damp with unshed tears. "There you are. I...I thought I had lost you. Long ago. I'd hoped I would find your way again some day. Or that you would find me."

Aziraphale, trembling but with a smile and cheeks damp with tears, gestured to the board. "Is it...? Is it Thursday? Sh-shall we start a new match?" 

There was much that Crowley had wanted to do over the years. The desire burned in him and he could never cool it. Aziraphale was given almost all of the affection he ever wanted or hinted to. They shared a bed so that when the angel inevitably woke from nightmares or strange dreams, someone was there to comfort him. They shared the hideous sofa, and there were more embraces and casual touches between them than Crowley could count by now, but there was a line that the demon never crossed. How could he ever when Aziraphale had no concept of what they were? Who they were? The angel did not know their history, and if he did, would he accept the changes? Crowley could not possibly know all that the _real_ Aziraphale wanted. He'd stamped the desire down and berated himself each time he felt a fissure in his resolve. Don't you dare. _Don't you dare._

But as Aziraphale looked at him with eyes unclouded and that heartbreaking, quivering smile on his lips, all of Crowley's resolve and restraint snapped. Unlike his previous displays of losing control, this one began quietly. He, too, was staring at the board again. His body was acting without his permission and in response to his racing heart. His breaths were quicker and his hands trembled as he reached out to touch a black checker. All of the blood coursing through his veins ran hot and he could hear it, his own pulse pounding in his ears to drown out the soft hiccup of Aziraphale fighting off a sob. The angel lost the fight with himself and his face turned red as fat tears rolled from the corners of his eyes. "I'm- I'm s-sorry. I didn't want to go, Crowley. _I didn't want to go._ " 

Crowley clenched his jaw and shoved the board roughly aside. 

Black and white pieces clattered to the floor and spread out across the study while the board slammed into the nearest wall, leaving a hole where its corner pierced. Crowley took Aziraphale's face between hands to drag him closer, looked him in the eyes for only a second and then lips crushed together, hard and fierce. He had imagined this moment for so long - daydreamed about it. After he said everything he had to say, needed to say, he would take the angel gently into his arms. Reality so rarely ever lived up to even the most well-planned dreams. His kiss was a hungry and desperate thing matched only by the grip Aziraphale had upon him. The angel was unpracticed. He obviously had never kissed another person in his life or, if he had, the occasion was rare. He was clumsy but eager and there never had been a kiss Crowley experienced that could compare to this one. 

"Doing this...bloody... _backwards_ ," he grit out through his teeth between each break in the searing kiss. "I'm- Aziraphale, I'm- _Sod_ the fucking _game_ \- I have to tell you-,"

Aziraphale shook his head when Crowley backed away. He held the front of Crowley's black henley in his fists. " _Crowley_ ," he said, his pleading eyes wide and his face flushed.

Crowley was not accustomed to refusing Aziraphale much any more, whether the angel's requests were spoken or hinted to, and he definitely was not going to pick the habit up again right now. "Right," he said, pressing his lips firmly together. "Shutting up." He kissed him again and this time, he did not let his inclination to blurt out the first thoughts that came to mind get in his - or Aziraphale's - way.

~*~

_'There's something I've never told you before. Truth is, I didn't know it myself for a long time because I was a horse's arse, and then when I figured it out I still was worse than that. There's a lie that everyone likes to tell, and they tell it enough that they begin to believe it. You know how all the demons Fell. Her Love was ripped away from us, so it was decided that we didn't feel it any more and that we didn't have the concept of what it was. Clever lie. I'm not sure who invented it. Anyway, I believed it too until I saw you in Eden. You were the only angel that deigned to stand on the ground and talk to the first humans, and then you gave away your sword. You talked to me when you had every reason not to and I frightened you, but you forgave me. In that moment, I loved you and I never stopped._

_You had taught me how to be kind again and how to be something that was more than a 'demon' when we walked the Earth before humans spread. I forgot how along the way._

_Of course, you reminded me because you're a bloody stubborn bastard._

_I know you don't remember me, still. You might never remember me. That's fine. I'm not always okay with that, but I think I will be._

_I miss you, angel. I'll love this new you, also._

_Yours always,_

_Crowley'_

Aziraphale closed the cover of the letterbook and smiled softly. Its leather binding was worn and softened from so much handling and its pages were thin around the edges. He would repair it the mundane way soon and then apply a soft miracle to ensure it never, ever fell apart, but he did appreciate the evidence that the book was loved.

He reflected on the day he had first encountered the book. After all of Crowley's profuse, gruffly delivered apologies were made and the demon had swelled his lips with enough kisses to make up for the thousands of years of never doing so, he laid the book in Aziraphale's hands. "This is- Your letters. I answered them. Don't say anything. _Please_ , not a word," he begged. They had not made it out of the study and laid upon the floor with the black and white checkers scattered around them. Aziraphale could not recall a time when Crowley had appeared so timid. The demon eyed the book but would not look at him. When he opened it and began to read, he understood why.

There were many more tears that day, tears of joy, of regret, and relief. The angel honoured Crowley's request. He did not talk about the demon's words filling almost every page. He did not put into words how touched he was (and flustered! Lord in Heaven, how flustered!) by all of Crowley's thoughts and petty complaints that were, in fact, fond observations. When his heart broke over the eventual longing for what was lost that he found in the additional letters, he did not ask Crowley about them. Instead, he reached out and discovered that he was reached for in return.

Time passed. It always did. People came and went and the world around the two of them changed in a dizzying whirl of humanity's triumphs and failures. They saw the ones that they loved eventually grow older and expire and they celebrated them quietly as they welcomed in the new. And on days full of rain, they walked together and spoke softly of all that it reminded them of. 

Aziraphale placed the book upon the shelf next to a collection of photo albums and an enormous tome written by Anathema Device that was filled with predictions for the future. Almost all of them proved to be true. She had written on the inside of the cover ' _For the ones that will still be here to see it all happen._ '

Then, he found Crowley.

The demon was in their study, slouching on a stool as he dabbed a paintbrush against a canvas. His subjects were often intended to stir up the art community and humans that chased conspiracies, but lately they had made a shift towards a more personal aspect to Crowley. This one was of a vibrant nebula with such exacting detail that Aziraphale knew for certain the demon had encountered it himself at some point. He had whispered so many of his secrets to Aziraphale over the years. As they laid in the dark, curled around each other, he confessed his fears and admitted desires he had harboured and could never allow himself to accept. Never did he speak of who he was or what he did before he Fell.

Aziraphale thought he might know, regardless. There was still time, in any case, and the angel was patient. He had always been for Crowley.

"S'rude to stare, angel," Crowley drawled. He was still looking at his work, but there was a lazy smirk climbing on his lips.

"Well, I am in the appropriate company, in that case," Aziraphale quipped in return, which had the desired result of causing a grin.

He laid a hand upon Crowley's shoulder and studied the painting up close. There were smokey ribbons of cobalt that slithered through violet that melted into crimson. Sparks of white resembled dust scattered throughout and in the center was a brilliant flash of the palest blue. 

"Which one is this?" he asked.

Crowley dipped his brush into water, then dragged his fingers over the bristles to miracle it clean. "They haven't named it yet," he explained. "The humans. Won't find it...for my money? Another hundred years." 

So it was mischief after all. Aziraphale's amusement glowed through his smile. "Oh? So you will leave this for someone to find, and then when they find it a hundred years later, you are going to watch them have a fit?"

The laughter that followed his assumption was free and without guilt. 

"All right. This has to dry. I'm all yours," Crowley said. "What's today going to be?"

Many possibilities were considered. Many of their days were spent peacefully. They enjoyed their tiny parcel of the world and were content to indulge in their particular hobbies and, of course, each other. 

"It will be my surprise," Aziraphale said with a smile and, without a moment of hesitation, Crowley took his hand. The demon's ready trust was once a shock to him. As time carried them onward, he had gradually accepted it without a blink of the eye, but never without the warm and gentle rush of love. 

Theirs was a world of endless tomorrows and change. They had once experienced the world parallel to one another in an endless, circling dance. 

Now and until Time decided to lie its weary head down and sleep, they would face the world together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And for now, to you, farewell.


End file.
